Jobs / Healthcare / 29-2056.00
Veterinary Technologists and Technicians
Perform medical tests in a laboratory environment for use in the treatment and diagnosis of diseases in animals. Prepare vaccines and serums for prevention of diseases. Prepare tissue samples, take blood samples, and execute laboratory tests, such as urinalysis and blood counts. Clean and sterilize instruments and materials and maintain equipment and machines. May assist a veterinarian during surgery.
- US jobs
- 129,140
- Median wage
- $47,380 a year
- Job family
- Healthcare
Can agents do the work of veterinary technologists and technicians?
We read the evidence at the level of the job family, Healthcare:
- Task levelPartialOne benchmark, from early 2025. On Stanford's MedAgentBench, where agents do clinical tasks in a simulated electronic health record, the best recorded model completes 69.7% of tasks (Claude 3.5 Sonnet v2). It has no maintained leaderboard, so newer models are not measured. No benchmark in our collection tests work with patients.
- Project levelPartialOnly adjacent evidence. GDPval includes nurses among its 44 occupations. OpenAI reports that GPT-5.5's deliverables won or tied against professionals' work in 84.9% of comparisons across all occupations. No benchmark in our collection tests clinical work over days, such as managing a patient's care.
Benchmarks for the job family
These cover work in healthcare, not always this occupation's tasks.
- 1846 EloClaude Opus 5.5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort, Default Fallback) · 23 Sep 2026Unrated
Typical tasks
From O*NET 31.0. Core tasks first. Few of these tasks have a benchmark today.
- Administer anesthesia to animals, under the direction of a veterinarian, and monitor animals' responses to anesthetics so that dosages can be adjusted.
- Care for and monitor the condition of animals recovering from surgery.
- Maintain controlled drug inventory and related log books.
- Perform laboratory tests on blood, urine, or feces, such as urinalyses or blood counts, to assist in the diagnosis and treatment of animal health problems.
- Prepare and administer medications, vaccines, serums, or treatments, as prescribed by veterinarians.
- Restrain animals during exams or procedures.
- Administer emergency first aid, such as performing emergency resuscitation or other life saving procedures.
- Clean and sterilize instruments, equipment, or materials.
- Provide veterinarians with the correct equipment or instruments, as needed.
- Perform dental work, such as cleaning, polishing, or extracting teeth.
- Observe the behavior and condition of animals and monitor their clinical symptoms.
- Give enemas and perform catheterizations, ear flushes, intravenous feedings, or gavages.
Other job titles for this occupation (19)
Certified Veterinary Technician (CVT) · Emergency Veterinary Technician (Emergency Vet Tech) · Internal Medicine Veterinary Technician (Internal Medicine Vet Tech) · Licensed Veterinary Technician (LVT) · Registered Veterinary Technician (RVT) · Veterinarian Technician (Vet Tech) · Veterinary Laboratory Technician (Vet Lab Tech) · Veterinary Nurse (Vet Nurse) · Veterinary Technician (Vet Tech) · Veterinary Technologist · Animal Care Technician (Animal Care Tech) · Animal Health Technician (Animal Health Tech) · Animal Technician (Animal Tech) · Swine Technician (Swine Tech) · Veterinarian Lab Technician (Veterinary Lab Tech) · Veterinary Assistant (Vet Assistant) · Veterinary Surgery Technician (Vet Surgery Tech) · Veterinary Surgery Technologist (Vet Surgery Technologist) · Veterinary X-Ray Operator