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Veterinarians

Also called DVM, VMD, Vet, Small animal veterinarian, Companion animal veterinarian

In brief

In May 2025, BLS counted 83,900 US veterinarians, with median pay of $130,100 a year. Of the BLS counts since 2003, the May 2025 count is the highest. The earliest figure here is an estimate of 8,000 from 1900, not measured the same way as today's count. The last full technology era for veterinarians: Digital PIMS, telehealth platforms, and electronic diagnostics integration, 2000 to 2020.

What the sources say

Official outlook

BLS projects employment to grow 9.4% from 2025 to 2035.

BLS Employment Projections 2025-35

AI exposure studies

Data as of BLS OEWS May 2025; BLS Employment Projections 2025-35. BLS publishes these counts as yearly survey snapshots and cautions against reading them as a precise trend. In May 2021 BLS changed how it estimates these counts (a model-based method using three years of survey data) and moved fully to the 2018 occupation codes, so part of a change across 2021 can come from the method rather than the work.

Last updated .

Cite this page
APA

Future History. (2026, October 11). Veterinarians: jobs and pay since 1900 [Data set; data as of BLS OEWS May 2025; BLS Employment Projections 2025-35]. https://futurehistory.earth/timeline/29-1131

Chicago

Future History. "Veterinarians: jobs and pay since 1900." Data as of BLS OEWS May 2025; BLS Employment Projections 2025-35. Last modified October 11, 2026. https://futurehistory.earth/timeline/29-1131.

BibTeX

@misc{futurehistory_29_1131, author = {{Future History}}, title = {Veterinarians: jobs and pay since 1900}, year = {2026}, month = oct, howpublished = {\url{https://futurehistory.earth/timeline/29-1131}}, note = {Last updated 2026-10-11. Data as of BLS OEWS May 2025; BLS Employment Projections 2025-35}, }

The access date is today's date on your device.

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187519001925195019752000now
Country
2026
Known then as Veterinary Surgeon (USVMA era)
Known then as Veterinarian / Veterinary Surgeon (AVMA era, equine-to-food-animal transition)
Known then as Veterinarian (companion animal growth era)
Known then as Veterinarians (BLS SOC 29-1131)
Known today as Veterinarians (BLS SOC 29-1131)
Projected to still be called Veterinarians (BLS SOC 29-1131)
Data from the May 2025 survey
US Employment
84K
Est.

Stated in source: BLS OEWS

Official statistic
Report an error
Median Annual Wage
$130,100
Est.

≈ $126,764 in 2024 prices (derived by us, CPI-adjusted)

Official statistic
Report an error
Beat · 1863

July 16, 1863: Forty veterinary surgeons from seven states convene in New York City to found the United States Veterinary Medical Association (USVMA), renamed the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) in 1898. The founding purpose is explicit: remove the practice of veterinary medicine "from the grasp of uneducated men." The Civil War, then in its third year, had exposed the Army's dependence on horses managed by untrained handlers; the USVMA is partly a response to military inadequacy. Josiah H. Stickney is elected first president; Dr. Alexandre Liautard becomes first secretary.

Beat · 1879

Iowa State University College of Veterinary Medicine opens as the first public veterinary college in the United States. The Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862 had made this possible by providing states with federal land to fund agricultural and mechanical colleges. Within the next two decades nearly thirty veterinary schools are established across the country, most of them short-lived private institutions; Iowa State, Michigan State (1886), and Cornell (1894) become the durable public anchors of veterinary education.

Beat · 1884

May 29, 1884: President Chester A. Arthur signs the Animal Industry Act, establishing the Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI) under the USDA. Daniel Elmer Salmon, one of the first Americans to receive a veterinary science doctorate, becomes the first director. The BAI is charged with preventing diseased animals from entering the food supply and eradicating livestock diseases including Texas cattle fever and contagious bovine pleuropneumonia. By 1890 the BAI is conducting meat inspection at a scale that will reach 53 million ante-mortem inspections annually by 1899. The BAI remains the backbone of federal veterinary public health until 1953 when it is reorganized into the Agricultural Research Service.

Beat · 1900

8,000 veterinarians practice in the United States in 1900, 80 percent of them doing equine work. The horse is the backbone of American transport and agriculture: cities rely on horse-drawn streetcars, trucks, and delivery wagons; farms use horses and mules to plow and harvest. The average American city veterinarian earns a living treating lameness, colic, and respiratory disease in draft horses.

Beat · 1920

By 1920 the automobile has nearly eliminated the urban horse, and equine work has collapsed to just 10 percent of veterinary caseloads. Yet the profession has nearly doubled in size to 14,000 practitioners. The pivot is instructive: veterinarians moved into livestock inspection, slaughterhouse and meat processing work for the BAI, academic and research positions, and early companion animal practice in cities. No profession in 20th-century American history more successfully reinvented itself after the destruction of its primary market.

Beat · 1954

A snapshot of the mid-century profession: approximately 10 percent of veterinarians in the AVMA Directory and Resource Manual are listed as small animal practitioners in 1954. The vast majority still work in large animal and mixed practice. The suburbanization boom of the 1950s and the rise of the middle-class family dog and cat will rapidly change this proportion over the next three decades.

Beat · 1970

James Herriot publishes "If Only They Could Talk" (1970), the first of a beloved series about veterinary practice in the Yorkshire Dales. The books, eventually selling 60 million copies worldwide, trigger an enormous surge of interest in veterinary careers through the 1970s and 1980s, particularly among girls and young women. By the early 1980s there are reportedly over 300 applicants for every open veterinary school position in the United States, creating intense competitive pressure on entry. The books also document the shift within the profession itself: Herriot's later chapters show him treating more companion animals than livestock, mirroring the profession's actual trajectory.

Beat · 1985

1985-1986: Two simultaneous inflections mark the profession's definitive transformation. First, 51 percent of AVMA members report working primarily in small animal practice for the first time in history: the companion animal sector has overtaken large animal practice as the majority of the profession. Second, women outnumber men in US veterinary school enrollments for the first time; by 1994, the percentage of female US veterinarians will have tripled to 28.7 percent, and by 2011 women will be the majority of AVMA members. Veterinary medicine is in the first decade of the most rapid feminization of any doctoral-level profession in American history.

Beat · 1993

October 18, 1993: Dr. Martin J. Fettman, a veterinary pathologist from Colorado State University, becomes the first veterinarian in space aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia (STS-58), conducting animal physiology experiments. The milestone is a symbolic marker of how far the profession has traveled from the farrier-focused world of 1863 toward a credentialed, research-intensive, scientifically prestigious identity.

Beat · 2025

The AVMA reports 133,475 total US veterinarians in 2025, up from 83,000 AVMA members in 2011. Women are now the substantial majority of the profession. The veterinary AI tool landscape is developing rapidly: "veterinary AI" search volume grew 1,680% year-over-year in 2024-2025, and the profession is shifting from asking "whether to adopt AI tools" to "which AI tools to adopt." The AVMA, ACVR/ECVDI, and AAVSB have all published AI governance frameworks in 2025 positioning the veterinarian as the indispensable clinical decision-maker in any AI-assisted workflow.

How to read this number

OEWS is a point-in-time survey snapshot, not a continuous time series; BLS advises against using it for year-over-year trend comparison.

Each dot is a cited figure over time; the dotted line only links them (values between aren't measured). Hollow dots are estimates.

Official statistic: Copied by a script from a statistics agency table or a published study's table, not retyped by hand. BLS figures and the forecast and exposure tables are also re-checked against that table on every data run. Researched context: Researched from the cited source rather than copied from it by a script, so it is not machine-checked yet. Spot a mistake? Each figure has a “Report an error” link.

Cited forecasts · present → 2035

Will AI replace veterinarians? What the research says

Each figure is stated by the named source; we publish no forecasts of our own. Where sources disagree, we show the disagreement rather than an average.

Each figure is stated by the named source; we publish no forecasts of our own. Where sources disagree, the spread is the honest signal.

What published forecasts say
Forecast change in the number of people doing this work, as published by each named source. Bars share one scale on every role, centred on zero and reaching the end at ±30%. Grey marks a small change, 3% or less either way.
BLS Employment Projections 2025-35
→ 2035
+9.4%
BLS National Employment Matrix, 2025-35 cycle, line for SOC 29-1131 (Veterinarians): 91.1 thousand jobs in 2025, projected 99.6 thousand in 2035, a change of +8.6 thousand (+9.4%). Matrix employment counts all jobs in the occupation, including self-employed workers (7.2% of this occupation in 2025). The average for all occupations in this cycle is +3.5%.
Official statisticReport an error
How exposed is this work to AI (research measures)
Scores as published by each study. Each row says what it measures. These measure what AI could technically do, not forecasts of jobs lost.
Eloundou et al. (2023), "GPTs are GPTs"
2023 study · Share of tasks exposed to LLMs (β, human-rated)
23%
of tasks
What this measures

Published occupation-level exposure from the paper's occ_level.csv for O*NET-SOC 29-1131.00 Veterinarians. Shown: human-rated β = 0.23, the share of the occupation's tasks an LLM could do in at least half the time at equal quality, counting tasks that need LLM-powered software at half weight (β = E1 + 0.5 × E2). Other published measures for this occupation: human-rated α (LLM alone) 0.027 and γ (all LLM-assisted) 0.432; GPT-4-rated β 0.27. This measures how much of the work an LLM could touch, not how many jobs disappear.

Official statisticReport an error
Today, in this role

What's changing day to day for veterinarians

Three parts of your work where AI is already doing real lifting, and what stays yours.

AI is sitting alongside you hereReview and edit AI-generated SOAP notes and client discharge instructions produced by ambient veterinary scribes (ScribbleVet, Shepherd TranscribeAI, Digitail Tails AI) after each patient encounter, verifying that the AI correctly captured the presenting complaint, examination findings, assessment, and treatment plan

Review and edit AI-generated SOAP notes and client discharge instructions produced by ambient veterinary scribes (ScribbleVet, Shepherd TranscribeAI, Digitail Tails AI) after each patient encounter, verifying that the AI correctly captured the presenting complaint, examination findings, assessment, and treatment plan; correcting species-specific drug dosing errors or omitted physical exam findings; and finalizing the record before it is transferred to the PIMS.[7],[8],[9]

Where your edge is

AI ambient scribes are eliminating a few hours/day of after-appointment note-writing: the leading driver of veterinary burnout. "Veterinary AI" search volume grew 1,680% YoY (2024-2025), and practices that adopt these tools report significant time savings. Your value shifts to expert review: veterinary AI scribes still make species-specific errors (drug dosing scaled for a dog applied to a cat, incorrect dental notation, wrong anatomical site). Build a rapid verification protocol for the AI-generated note that focuses on the high-error zones (drug names/doses, species, laterality) so review takes a minute rather than a re-dictation.

AI is sitting alongside you hereInterpret radiographic images with AI second-opinion support, reviewing digital X-rays of thoracic, abdominal, and musculoskeletal regions in the PIMS alongside AI-generated preliminary findings from SignalPET or Antech AIS RapidRead that have flagged potential pathologies

Interpret radiographic images with AI second-opinion support, reviewing digital X-rays of thoracic, abdominal, and musculoskeletal regions in the PIMS alongside AI-generated preliminary findings from SignalPET or Antech AIS RapidRead that have flagged potential pathologies; correlating the AI output with clinical presentation; deciding whether to proceed on the AI-assisted read or escalate to a board-certified veterinary radiologist for a signed teleradiology report.[10],[11],[4]

Where your edge is

The ACVR/ECVDI 2025 position statement warns that no current commercial veterinary AI imaging product fully meets transparency and validation standards, making your clinical judgment the essential safety layer. A 2024-2025 JAVMA pilot study found AI radiology tools showed "deficiencies in interpretation of general practice-sourced canine abdominal radiographs," meaning AI performs best on clean, well-positioned images of common pathologies and misses more on real-world general practice films. Use SignalPET 360° or similar tools as a trained second opinion that raises your sensitivity for common findings, but validate any positive finding against the full clinical picture and your own read before acting on it.

AI is sitting alongside you hereTriage and manage telehealth consultations, responding to AI-routed triage cases on platforms like Pawp or Airvet where an AI triage layer has categorized the presenting complaint and routed the case to the first available licensed veterinarian

Triage and manage telehealth consultations, responding to AI-routed triage cases on platforms like Pawp or Airvet where an AI triage layer has categorized the presenting complaint and routed the case to the first available licensed veterinarian; conducting video consultations within the constraints of the applicable state VCPR telehealth rules; advising on home management, emergency referral urgency, or scheduling an in-person examination as appropriate.[12],[13]

Where your edge is

The veterinary telehealth market is growing at 18.12% CAGR through 2034 and the AI triage layer is permanently shifting where the veterinarian's time is spent: AI categorizes the complaint and presents the case context before the veterinarian ever enters the consultation. Your value in this channel is the licensed clinical judgment that AI cannot provide: physically dangerous cases requiring emergency referral vs. watchful waiting, prescribing decisions within telehealth VCPR rules, and the nuanced triage that distinguishes "go to the ER now" from "monitor and call if it worsens." Learn your state-specific VCPR telehealth rules, they vary significantly and determine what you can prescribe or diagnose remotely.

Where veterinarians go next

Natural next steps for someone with your foundation: not exits, evolutions.

What each move takes

A direction you could grow

Medical and Health Services Managers

Veterinarians who own or manage practices, or who join corporate veterinary groups (VCA, Banfield/Mars, National Veterinary Associates, BluePearl, Thrive), are in demand for medical director and regional director roles as AI tools reshape practice operations. As AI scribes, radiology platforms, and PIMS automation become standard clinical infrastructure, corporate groups need veterinary leaders who can evaluate, deploy, and govern these tools: skills that require both clinical domain expertise and organizational management experience. An MBA or Master of Veterinary Business Administration (MVBA) from Purdue or similar programs, combined with veterinary practice ownership experience, is the primary credential pathway.

What you'd add
  • · Veterinary business management: understanding practice economics (revenue per case, EBITDA, staff-to-DVM ratios), corporate group M&A dynamics, and multi-site operations
  • · AI tool evaluation and governance: assessing vendor claims for veterinary AI tools (radiology, scribes, cytology) against ACVR/ECVDI validation standards; building adoption policies that manage automation bias
  • · Veterinary practice accreditation: AAHA accreditation standards and quality improvement frameworks as the foundation for medical director accountability
  • · People leadership: managing multi-generational veterinary teams, technician career development, and the credentialing/supervision structures that govern licensed vs. non-licensed staff
  • · Financial literacy: DRG-equivalent case costing for veterinary services, inventory and pharmaceutical margin management, and value-based care concepts as corporate groups explore outcomes-based contracts with insurers
What it takesSome new skills to pick up
Tools of the era

How has the work of veterinarians changed since 1863?

The tools that defined the work, one line per era. Select an era to see how it reshaped the work.

  • Physical examination, basic pharmacopeia, and surgical instruments (pre-pharmaceutical era)

    The veterinarian of the late 19th and early 20th century worked with hands, eyes, and ears: percussion of the chest, palpation of the abdomen, inspection of mucous membranes, auscultation with a stethoscope, and the clinical judgment accumulated over years of practice. The pharmacopeia was modest: arsenic compounds, mercury, turpentine, and botanical remedies drawn from human medicine. Surgical instruments were minimally adapted from human surgery. Radiography existed after 1895 but was used rarely in veterinary practice before the 1930s. The limiting factor of this era was not technology but knowledge: without germ theory having fully penetrated veterinary education and without any antibiotics, the tools available determined what was possible, and the gap between veterinary and human medicine was enormous.

    Effect on the work

    No displacement of veterinary labor: the profession grew from approximately 8,000 practitioners in 1900 to an estimated 14,000 by 1920 despite the collapse of equine work, because food safety inspection and emerging companion animal demand absorbed the transition.

  • Antibiotics, vaccines, and anesthesia (pharmaceutical revolution era)

    Penicillin became available in the early 1940s and transformed both human and veterinary medicine within a decade. Veterinarians gained effective treatments for bacterial infections that had previously been death sentences for livestock and companion animals. Vaccines for distemper, rabies, and feline panleukopenia made routine preventive care valuable. Modern anesthesia using barbiturates and later halogenated gases made elective and emergency surgery safe. The 1965 FDA creation of a Veterinary Medical Branch gave the profession formal pharmaceutical regulatory infrastructure. The companion animal veterinarian of 1965 could offer a fundamentally different quality of care than their 1940 counterpart: the hospital-based, procedure-rich practice model that dominates today became technically possible in this era.

  • Diagnostic imaging, clinical specialization, and practice management systems

    The 1970s and 1980s brought portable ultrasound machines, practical digital radiography, and the founding of the veterinary specialist certification system (AVMA recognized specialties from 1951 onwards; the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine, board-certifying internists and cardiologists, was established in 1972). In 1975 the American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA) established practice accreditation standards that formalized the hospital model in companion animal care. Veterinary practice management software arrived in the 1980s, replacing paper ledgers and index cards. By 1985, 51 percent of AVMA members worked primarily in small animal practice, and the companion animal hospital looked increasingly like a small human hospital: receptionists, technicians, dedicated surgical suites, and laboratory equipment on site.

    Effect on the work

    The specialization and hospital-ization of companion animal practice increased the revenue per case and the complexity per visit, driving demand for more veterinarians, more credentialed technicians, and more administrative staff. Employment grew substantially through this era even as the profession feminized and the nature of the work shifted from farm calls to clinic-based practice.

  • Digital PIMS, telehealth platforms, and electronic diagnostics integration (Idexx, Heska, Zoetis analyzers)

    Practice information management systems (PIMS) such as AVImark, Cornerstone, and later Digitail and Shepherd went from optional to essential in the 2000s, centralizing records, invoicing, and appointment management. IDEXX Laboratories built out its in-clinic analyzer line (VetConnect PLUS, LaserCyte, Catalyst), enabling same-visit blood chemistry and hematology that previously required overnight sends to a reference lab. Diagnostic imaging became fully digital. Veterinary telehealth emerged as a distinct channel with the founding of Airvet (2018) and Pawp. The 2000s also saw the rise of corporate veterinary consolidation: VCA Animal Hospitals, Banfield (acquired by Mars in 2007), National Veterinary Associates, and BluePearl Veterinary Partners began consolidating the previously fragmented independent-practice market. By 2019, corporate-owned practices employed a sizeable share of companion animal veterinarians.

  • AI scribes, AI radiology, and AI cytology (ScribbleVet, SignalPET 360, Zoetis Vetscan Imagyst)

    The 2020s brought the first wave of AI tools that genuinely redesigned how veterinarians spend their time. AI ambient scribes (ScribbleVet, Shepherd TranscribeAI, Digitail Tails AI) record consultations in real time and generate SOAP notes, client discharge instructions, and PIMS-ready documentation, eliminating the few hours per day of post-appointment documentation that had become the leading driver of veterinarian burnout. AI radiology platforms (SignalPET 360, launched 2018; Antech AIS RapidRead, 2024) provide second-opinion reads on radiographs within several minutes for a growing list of pathologies. AI cytology (Zoetis Vetscan Imagyst AI Masses, launched June 2025) delivers same-day in-clinic results on mass fine-needle aspirates that previously required external lab turnaround. The AVMA (2025) and ACVR/ECVDI (JAVMA April 2025) both position these tools as decision support requiring veterinary supervision, not autonomous diagnosis. The veterinarian's legal and clinical accountability for all AI-assisted decisions is established in AAVSB guidance (August 2025).

    Effect on the work

    The veterinary AI tool market is growing rapidly ("veterinary AI" search volume increased 1,680% year-over-year in 2024-2025 per VetSoftwareHub). BLS still projects 10 percent employment growth 2024-2034: AI tools are augmenting rather than replacing the profession, concentrating displacement on documentation and administrative tasks while leaving examination, surgery, and client counseling intact.

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Veterinarians employment and pay by year

On record since1863
Latest US employment83,900 (May 2025)Source: BLS OEWS May 2025Official statisticReport an error
Latest US median pay$130,100 (May 2025)Source: BLS OEWS May 2025Official statisticReport an error
Outlook+9.4% by 2035Source: BLS Employment Projections 2025-35Official statisticReport an error

In other countries

The latest figure each country's statistics agency publishes for this job. Each uses its own occupation definition, survey basis and currency, so the numbers are not directly comparable with each other or with the US figures.

  • Canada (NOC 31103)

    Employment, 2020
    10,865, Statistics Canada Census 2021 Official statistic Report an errorStatistics Canada Census of Population 2021: number of persons with employment income in NOC 31103 Veterinarians, Canada, reference year 2020. A recipients basis (anyone with employment income during the year), slightly broader than a point-in-time employed count. Statistics Canada Open Licence.
    Median pay, 2020
    C$96,000, Statistics Canada Census 2021 Official statistic Report an errorStatistics Canada Census of Population 2021 (Table 98-10-0586): median employment income for NOC 31103 Veterinarians, Canada, reference year 2020, full-year full-time workers (the basis comparable to the US OEWS full-time median). Statistics Canada Open Licence.
View all 29 years of cited US data, each linked to its source
YearUS employmentAnnual pay (median unless marked)SourceReport
19008,000n/aEst., AVMA JAVMA 2013 Researched contextReport
192014,000n/aEst., AVMA JAVMA 2013 Researched contextReport
1950n/a$7,374Est., AVMA JAVMA 2013 Researched contextReport
195419,000n/aEst., AVMA JAVMA 2013 Researched contextReport
1955n/a$10,694Est., AVMA JAVMA 2013 Researched contextReport
198546,000n/aEst., AVMA JAVMA-News 2015 Researched contextReport
200343,890$64,750BLS OEWS May 2003 Official statisticReport
200446,090$66,590BLS OEWS May 2004 Official statisticReport
200547,870$68,910BLS OEWS May 2005 Official statisticReport
200649,750$71,990BLS OEWS May 2006 Official statisticReport
200750,790$75,230BLS OEWS May 2007 Official statisticReport
200853,110$79,050BLS OEWS May 2008 Official statisticReport
200954,130$80,510BLS OEWS May 2009 Official statisticReport
201054,480$82,040BLS OEWS May 2010 Official statisticReport
201155,410$82,900BLS OEWS May 2011 Official statisticReport
201256,020$84,460BLS OEWS May 2012 Official statisticReport
201359,230$86,640BLS OEWS May 2013 Official statisticReport
201462,470$87,590BLS OEWS May 2014 Official statisticReport
201565,650$88,490BLS OEWS May 2015 Official statisticReport
201667,650$88,770BLS OEWS May 2016 Official statisticReport
201769,370$90,420BLS OEWS May 2017 Official statisticReport
201871,060$93,830BLS OEWS May 2018 Official statisticReport
201974,540$95,460BLS OEWS May 2019 Official statisticReport
202073,710$99,250BLS OEWS May 2020 Official statisticReport
202177,260$100,370BLS OEWS May 2021 Official statisticReport
202278,810$103,260BLS OEWS May 2022 Official statisticReport
202378,220$119,100BLS OEWS May 2023 Official statisticReport
202480,630$125,510BLS OEWS May 2024 Official statisticReport
202583,900$130,100BLS OEWS May 2025 Official statisticReport
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