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Overview
Design, measure, fit, and adapt lenses and frames for client according to written optical prescription or specification. Assist client with inserting, removing, and caring for contact lenses. Assist client with selecting frames. Measure customer for size of eyeglasses and coordinate frames with facial and eye measurements and optical prescription. Prepare work order for optical laboratory containing instructions for grinding and mounting lenses in frames. Verify exactness of finished lens spectacles. Adjust frame and lens position to fit client. May shape or reshape frames. Includes contact lens opticians.
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Titles for this career often contain these words
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Responsibilities and activities
Opticians typically do the following:
- Receive customers’ prescriptions for eyeglasses or contact lenses
- Measure customers’ eyes and faces, such as the distance between their pupils
- Help customers choose eyeglass frames and lens treatments, such as eyewear for occupational use or sports, tints, or antireflective coatings, based on their vision needs and style preferences
- Create work orders for ophthalmic laboratory technicians, providing information about the lenses needed
- Adjust eyewear to ensure a good fit
- Repair or replace broken eyeglass frames
- Educate customers about eyewear—for example, show them how to care for their contact lenses
- Perform business tasks, such as maintaining sales records, keeping track of customers’ prescriptions, and ordering and maintaining inventory
Opticians who work in small shops or prepare custom orders may cut lenses and insert them into frames—tasks usually performed by ophthalmic laboratory technicians.
Salary
Median salary: $38,530 annually
Half of those employed in this career earn between $30,540 and $50,150.
Context: Median Salary
How do salaries for this career compare to other jobs' salaries?
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Salary growth for dispensing opticians
Is this job likely to reward you for sticking with it through pay raises and promotions? The higher a job’s “experience quotient,” the more you are likely to get as you stay there.
Experience quotient percentile
Take a minute to look at how much you might expect your salary to increase with each five years' experience, as well as how the numbers working at each age change. Does this seem to be a job for the young or the old, or could it be a career offering steady salary growth for many years?
Salary distribution
Number employed
About Dispensing Opticians
How do benefits for this career compare to other jobs? The availability of health care, especially employer provided health care, and pension plans can add significantly to the value of compensation you receive in a career. These charts compare how this career compares to other careers with regard to health care and pension plans.
Employee has health insurance
Employer is providing health insurance
Employer-provided pension plan is available
Worker concerns
Some jobs are more stressful than others, and some are just plain dangerous. The following list gives the percentages of dispensing opticians who report hazardous or difficult situations typically occurring at least once a week.
- Time Pressure (74%)
- Unpleasant or Angry People (59%)
- High Conflict Frequency (33%)
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Personality and skills
Can you see yourself in the ranks of Dispensing Opticians? Here are the skills and traits that could lead to success.
Business skills
Opticians are often responsible for the business aspects of running an optical store. They should be comfortable making decisions and have some knowledge of sales and inventory management.
Communication skills
Opticians must listen closely to what customers want. They must clearly explain options and instructions for care in ways that customers understand.
Customer-service skills
Because some opticians work in stores, they must answer questions and know about the products they sell. They interact with customers on a personal level, fitting eyeglasses or contact lenses. To succeed, they must be friendly, courteous, patient, and helpful to customers.
Decisionmaking skills
Opticians must determine what adjustments need to be made to eyeglasses and contact lenses. They must decide which materials and styles are most appropriate for each customer on the basis of their preferences and lifestyle.
Dexterity
Opticians frequently use special tools to make final adjustments and repairs to eyeglasses. They must have good hand‒eye coordination to do that work quickly and accurately.
Injury and Illness
About 7 dispensing opticians become injured or ill for every 10,000 workers, which reflects fewer events than in 56% of other careers. The most common specific concerns detailed following.
Soreness and pain
Education pathways to this career
Education attained by dispensing opticians
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), dispensing opticians typically hold a high school diploma or equivalent.
Sometimes the typical education identified by the BLS differs a bit from the reality of the how much education current workers actually have. The donut shows the education level held by people currently working as dispensing opticians as reported in responses to the American Community Survey.
Details: Licensing and certification recommended for dispensing opticians
About half of the states require opticians to be licensed. Licensure usually requires completing formal education through an approved program or completing an apprenticeship. In addition, opticians must pass one or more exams to be licensed. The opticianry licensing board in each state can supply information on licensing requirements.
Opticians may choose to become certified in eyeglass dispensing or contact lens dispensing or both. Certification requires passing exams from the American Board of Opticianry (ABO) and National Contact Lens Examiners (NCLE). Nearly all state licensing boards use the ABO and NCLE exams as the basis for state licensing. Some states also require opticians to pass state-specific practical exams.
In most states that require licensure, opticians must renew their license every 1 to 3 years and must complete continuing education requirements.
Education level of Dispensing Opticians
Only 21% of dispensing opticians have a bachelor's degree or higher.
Education attained by dispensing opticians
None
High School
Some College
Associate's Degree
Bachelor's Degree
Master's Degree
Professional Degree
Doctorate
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Programs recommended by the Department of Education
The Department of Education recommends the following college degree programs as preparation for this career. You can click the program row to learn more about the program and explore a list of schools that offer the program.
Number of degrees awarded in 2018
Education
Education level of awarded degrees
Assoc./Cert.
Bachelor's
Graduate
Gender
Gender of graduates
Men
Women
Race/Origin
Race/origin of graduates
White
Minority
International
Where are the jobs
State-by-state employment numbers
Some careers tend to be centered in specific parts of the country. For example, most jobs in fashion are in New York or California. Let's see if your dream job is easy to find in your dream location! We have a few choices for viewing the data that can help you get a full employment picture.
Select a state to see local area details
Number of Dispensing Opticians per 1,000 workers (ACS)
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Job density versus job count
Which states hire the most dispensing opticians? We wonder if that's a fair question since states come in all sizes, so instead let's start with the question of which states have the highest density of people working as dispensing opticians. You can choose to view the number of jobs per state if you prefer.
Salaries by state
Let's get a feel for where dispensing opticians earn the highest salaries. There are several choices for which data we consider and how we view that data, and each can lead to different conclusions, so please read on...
Median salary versus state ratio
We use two methods to compare salaries across states:
- In-state comparisons: the ratio of median (middle) salaries for dispensing opticians compared to the median salary for all people working in each state, or
- Median salary: the unaltered median salaries for dispensing opticians.
The darkest shading corresponds to states in which dispensing opticians earn the highest salary when compared to other jobs in the state. We think this figure might be a better indicator than the actual salary for your buying power as a state resident.
Select a state to see local area details
Location-adjusted median salary for Dispensing Opticians (ACS)
Employment
23% of Dispensing opticians are working part time.
We’ve found that some jobs have a huge number of part-time workers, and typically that is because they are unable to find full-time work or the job itself can’t provide full-time hours. With 23% part-time workers, this occupation has a higher percentage of part-time workers than 74% of careers.
Employer types
This donut shares the break-down of workers by employer type, giving us a picture of what employers most typically hire for this career.
Employers of undefined (ACS)
Private for-profit
Private not-for-profit
Local government
State government
Federal government
Self-employed incorporated
Self-employed not incorporated
Working without pay
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Distribution: Salaries of dispensing opticians by type of employer
Here are the salary distributions based on employer type.
Gender
Dispensing opticians and gender
With 71% women, this occupation has a higher percentage of women than 81% of careers.
Gender of Dispensing opticians
Men (29%)
Women (71%)
Distribution: salaries by gender
Does gender greatly influence your salary in this career? The closer the bars are, the less discrepancy there is.
We only include salary data when the survey error is less than 20%, so you may see only partial information for some categories.
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Context: Women in the workforce
How does this career compare to other careers with regard to the percentage of women in the career.
Context: Salary inequity
The median (middle) salary for all full-time male workers
in the US exceeds the full-time median salary for women
by 19%, and the difference
for dispensing opticians tops that, with the median salary for
men 36% higher than the median
salary for women.
Race/Origin
Race and origin of Dispensing opticians
This donut shows the distribution of race and origin among those employed as Dispensing opticians.
Race/origin of dispensing opticians
White (80% )
Black (7% )
Asian (6% )
Other (3% )
Multiracial (2% )
Hispanic (1% )
American Indian (1% )
Pacific Islander (0% )
Distribution: salaries by race/origin
Some careers might have a pay disparity based on race or origin, the closer the below bars are the less of a discrepancy is present.
We only include salary data when the survey error is less than 20%, so you may see only partial information for some categories.
