Veterinarian

Also known as: Vet, Animal Doctor, DVM, Doctor of Veterinary Medicine

Healthcare & BiotechDoctoral/Professional DegreeStrong Growth

Diagnose and treat animals, from pets to livestock, combining medicine with a love for creatures.

Salary Range

Entry Level

$100K

Starting salary

→

Top Level

$400K

Top salary

Board-Certified Veterinary Surgeon

The highest-paid specialization or seniority level for veterinarians.

About 1 in 33 reaches this level

About 91,100 veterinarians in the US (BLS Employment Projections, SOC 29-1131, 2025); ~2,667 are ACVS board-certified surgeons (~3%) — the most selective veterinary specialty, with top surgeons reaching ~$400K. New DVM grads average ~$129-140K in companion-animal practice (AVMA).

Salary data based on 2025 BLS, Glassdoor, and industry reports. Actual compensation varies by location, experience, and employer.

How to Become One

This career typically requires a doctoral/professional degree. Here are the top colleges for it:

Explore all colleges →

Cost to Qualify

DVM

8 years after school

$181,923

Tuition and required fees. Living costs are not included

Four years of vet school tuition (on top of a bachelor's) runs from about $78K in-state at the cheapest public schools to about $285K for an out-of-state or private seat - vet schools have far fewer in-state spots than other health professions, so many students end up paying out-of-state rates. AVMA reports the class of 2025's average debt at $174K across all grads (including the 18% with zero debt) and $212K among those who borrowed. At the out-of-state/private end, cost runs 2.0-2.9x salaryEntry ($100K) - one of the highest ratios in this dataset alongside dentistry and physical therapy.

↗AAVMC, Cost Comparison Tool - the published Tableau workbook file. Its data extract carries per-school columns named exactly 'Resident Four Year Tuition', 'Non-Resident Four Year Tuition', 'Resident Four Year Total Cost' and 'Percentage of Indebted graduates'. Downloads with plain curl (HTTP 200, 1,015,669 bytes).↗AAVMC, Cost Comparison Tool - the dashboard as a human sees it ('Resident, non-resident, and international total tuition (adjusted for colleges where residency may be established after the first year) charged to the class of 2025')↗AVMA, 'Inflation continues to dampen gains in veterinarian salaries, fewer new grads entering full-time employment' - AVMA's own write-up of the 2026 Economic State of the Veterinary Profession data

Sticker price, not what most people pay — scholarships, aid and in-state status all move it. Room and board is shown separately on each college's page.

AI Risk Assessment

Low Risk (Level 2/5)How we score ›

Veterinarians examine, diagnose and treat animals, perform surgery, and help owners through hard decisions. Most of that is hands-on work AI cannot do. AI is arriving as a helper. In 2024, AVMA News, the veterinary association's news service, reported that more and more vets use AI tools, mostly to read X-rays and other images and to manage medical records, including voice-to-text tools that turn conversations with owners into notes. Smart collars that track a pet's vital signs and alert owners to changes are also spreading. A 2025 Microsoft Research study of how much of each job's tasks AI chatbots can help with put veterinarians in the middle of 785 jobs (362nd).

Demand is strong. BLS projects veterinarian jobs to grow 9% from 2025 to 2035, much faster than the average for all jobs, with about 3,100 openings a year, driven by more spending on pets, new treatment options and a growing, aging pet population. That fits the rubric's "2 Low": AI helps with parts of the work, and growing demand absorbs the time it saves.

What would change this score. If AI that diagnoses from images, lab results and at-home monitoring gets good enough that clinics need fewer vets for the same number of animals, or owners start skipping visits because of it, this would move to 3. We have found no sign of that yet.