The Sonographer Salary: What Can I Expect?
If you have heard of sonographers and are curious about the sonographer salary, you’ve come to the right place. It is all very well to have a passion for your job and an interest; indeed, as a sonographer it is very important to be compassionate and care about your work, but you still have to make a living! Fortunately, life as a sonographer can give you the best of both worlds: you can enjoy making a difference in the lives of others and you can make pretty good money at the same time.
What Will You Do for Your Sonographer Salary?
Sonographers are a type of medical technician who work in the field of ultrasounds. If you’ve ever been pregnant or gone to the doctor or hospital with someone who was pregnant, chances are you dealt with a sonographer or at least your doctor will. If you have ever been scanned for a tumour or a strange growth, it will be a sonographer who does the grunt work. Sonographers handle the ultrasonic equipment, making sure it gets to where it needs to go and then interpreting the data spat out to give patients important information about what’s going on inside their bodies.
Sonographers play a very important technical role in many different places. Ultrasonic technicians are found in clinics, hospitals, nursing homes, pregnancy clinics, and laboratories where they may seem invisible, but are very important. As such, the average sonogram technical salary is fairly good, particularly when compared to other jobs which only take a couple of years of education.
Sonographer Salary Information
As an important member of your facility with plenty of technical education and training, it is only to be expected that you would be paid well for the work. The average pay for a sonographer sits at about $23.00 per hour or around $61,000 a year. However, within this average, there is a pay scale which is basically divided up by seniority; one year, five year and then ten year marks where the pay steadily increases.
1st Year Sonographer Salary
When you are first starting out as a sonographer, your hourly rate will probably sitting at about $21.00/hour. This alone is a far better hourly salary than what many other people get, though it may seem a bit low compared to all of the work you will have to do. The first year diagnostic medical sonographer salary doesn’t stay for long at $21.00 though, so just take your first year to learn all you can and get ready to be launched into a well paying career!
2-5th Year Sonographer Salary
Starting at about your second year, you can expect your salary to move up to about $23.00/hour. On average, you will be getting about a dollar a year a raise until you reach the next milestone in your diagnostic medical sonographer salary scale.
5th year – 10 Years Sonographer Salary
In this field, you will be well established as a sonographer and your salary will reflect that. Those working in this field for five or more years can expect a salary in the range of about $28.00/hour; now we’re talking! This is a pretty solid salary to get, particularly since you could conceivably still be in your twenties or early thirties at this point.
10+ Years Sonographer Salary
Finally, when you pass ten years, you can conceivably expect to make around $31.00/hour and this is where most sonogram technician salary caps stay.
All of these average salaries include overtime and on-call pay; plenty of sonographers find themselves working up to three extra hours a pay period and can get called in unexpectedly if something goes wrong or is needed. The sonography salary alone is reason enough for many people to go into this line of work, particularly since this career path is on the rise due to the increased demand in the medical field and evermore evolving technology. The combination makes it easier to find work and that means easier to support yourself and your family!
Now that you know the sonographer salary and the benefits you can derive from helping people, working with technology and enjoying your life again, you should really check out a sonographer education for yourself! Once your education is complete and you’ve found a job, you can enjoy the benefits of a good sonographer salary for yourself and all of the perks that go with it.
