An optometric technician is the trained clinical assistant who gets an eye care visit ready for the doctor: taking case histories, running pre-tests such as autorefraction, tonometry and visual fields, instilling diagnostic drops when delegated, and documenting the visit in the EHR.
This guide explains what the job involves, where techs work, certification, pay and how to get hired.
What is an optometric technician?
An optometric technician works on the clinical side of an optometry practice, alongside the doctor of optometry.
The American Optometric Association (AOA) gathers this staff under the term paraoptometric: allied health staff trained to assist doctors of optometry, including opticians, contact lens staff and optical assistants.
The AOA's duty list for paraoptometrics runs from front office and chairside assisting through pre-testing, contact lens instruction, frame styling and fitting, billing and coding, office management and vision therapy.
The AOA draws a distinction between paraoptometrics and ophthalmic technicians and assistants, who assist ophthalmologists.
Federal data blurs that line: BLS has no occupation code for optometric technicians or assistants, and the closest available code is SOC 29-2057, ophthalmic medical technicians.
O*NET's sample titles for that code include Ophthalmic Assistant, Ophthalmic Medical Assistant and Ophthalmic Technician, so assistant and technician titles share one federal occupation.
That grouping matters when you read job data.
Federal wage and outlook figures for this job are reported under the ophthalmic medical technician occupation, with optometry offices as one industry slice of it.
O*NET defines the occupation as workers who assist ophthalmologists by performing ophthalmic clinical functions, and flags it Bright Outlook.
In a practice, the title varies — optometric technician, optometry technician, optometric tech — and the duties come down to what the supervising doctor delegates and how the practice is staffed.
What does an optometric technician do in an eye exam?
The tech's workup starts the visit.
O*NET's task list for the occupation includes taking medical histories, tonometry, operating autorefractors, phoropters and tomographs, axial length measurement, visual acuity testing, lensometry, giving topical ophthalmic medications and visual field testing.
One industry benchmark for the skill set is the AOA's CPOT exam outline.
Its case-history items run from chief complaint, history of present illness and pain level through patient and family ocular and medical history, current medications and supplements, allergies, social history, work and school duties, and hobbies and visual demands.
Its acuity section covers Snellen, Allen figures, tumbling E and Landolt C charts, counting fingers through no light perception for very low vision, and pinhole acuity.
Autorefraction, autokeratometry and subjective refraction — manual or automated, distance and near — are on the outline, as is tonometry with non-contact tonometers, Tono-Pen, iCare and Goldmann applanation, plus proper tonometer disinfection.
The outline also covers automated visual field testing with 10-2, 24-2 and 30-2 patterns and Threshold versus SITA Fast strategies, plus fundus photography and posterior-segment and anterior-segment OCT.
It lists instilling and recording diagnostic drops such as mydriatics and cycloplegics, and chairside scribing — recording the doctor's findings, diagnosis and plan in the EHR.
Testing and procedures form the outline's largest of five domains — 48% of operational items (82 items), ahead of professional issues (17.6%), contact lenses (14.4%), ophthalmic optics and dispensing (12.5%) and science of the eye (7.5%).
What a technician may actually do in a given state is governed by what the supervising optometrist may delegate — not by the exam outline.
Oregon's board rule (OAR 852-020-0060) is a worked example of a delegation rule.
Optometric physicians in Oregon may delegate non-prohibited tasks to well-trained technicians under direct supervision by an OD or MD at the practice site.
The rule bars delegating ophthalmoscopy, gonioscopy, final biomicroscopy, final refraction, final prescription and treatment decisions, and final tonometry for a glaucoma patient.
Oregon defines direct supervision as technician work overseen and approved by an optometric physician or MD at the practice site, with an intervention protocol in place.
Exam outlines are not delegation rules
Where do optometric techs work?
Most 2025 AOA CPC exam candidates worked in optometric private practice: 74% of them (823 people), with 46 in retail stores and 26 in MD offices.
Retail vision care is another visible employer.
Visionworks' own careers page describes its in-store Optometric Assistant as taking patients through the first steps of the eye exam visit, trained in eye health, preliminary testing, optics, the company's products and services, and insurance.
That is one retailer's self-description.
The occupation is not defined around optometry: O*NET's definition for the code describes assisting ophthalmologists.
The counts read the same way — in the OEWS May 2025 release, the industry row for offices of optometrists counted 22,900 of these workers, while the same occupation counted 71,010 across all industries, both labelled views of SOC 29-2057 in the same federal release.
Schedules look conventional: in O*NET's survey of ophthalmic medical technicians, 77% reported a typical 40-hour week, 14% reported more than 40 hours, and 100% reported a regular, set schedule.
Our sources carry no figure for how many patients a technician sees a day; flow varies by practice.
Do you need certification or a degree?
In O*NET's survey of ophthalmic medical technicians, 59% of respondents said a high school diploma or equivalent is required for new hires, 27% said a post-secondary certificate, and 9% said an associate degree — a low formal-education floor in that survey.
The industry's own credential ladder comes from the AOA: four paraoptometric certifications — Certified Paraoptometric (CPO), Certified Paraoptometric Assistant (CPOA), Certified Paraoptometric Technician (CPOT) and Certified Paraoptometric Coder (CPOC).
The AOA's Commission on Paraoptometric Certification (CPC) develops and administers the exams with Professional Testing Corporation; certification renews every three years, and AOA membership is not required to earn or keep it.
The CPO, CPOA and CPOT exams are accredited by the National Commission for Certifying Agencies (NCCA); the CPOC is not among the three NCCA-accredited exams.
Entry is reachable from a working job.
CPO eligibility needs a high school diploma or equivalent plus at least six months of recent full-time eye care employment by the time of testing — 40 hours a week or 1,040 hours — documented with a signed CPO Attestation Statement uploaded at application.
The technician-level CPOT requires a current CPOA plus at least six additional months of full-time eye care work as a CPOA, or graduation within the last five years (or last-semester enrollment) from an ACOE-approved optometric technician program.
The CPC has combined the former two-part written and clinical CPOT exams into a single written exam, which now includes some images and videos; anyone registering in 2026 needs to pass only the one-part exam.
Oregon's rule is an example, not a national one: delegation rules vary by state.
Our research did not survey every state's rules for technicians and assistants, so whether a credential is required where you work was not established — check with your state's board of optometry and the employer.
How much do optometric technicians make?
Start with the label: BLS has no occupation code for optometric technicians or assistants, so federal pay data for this job is reported under SOC 29-2057, ophthalmic medical technicians — the closest available code.
In offices of optometrists (NAICS 621320), the OEWS May 2025 release counts 22,900 ophthalmic medical technicians with a median wage of $38,650 a year, or $18.58 an hour.
Across all industries, the same occupation counts 71,010 workers with a median annual wage of $45,570 ($21.91 an hour), a 10th percentile of $35,700 and a 90th percentile of $61,940.
OEWS covers wage-and-salary workers and excludes the self-employed, and a median describes the middle of a distribution — not an offer any one practice extends.
The full percentile table for the occupation is on our ophthalmic technician salary page — the exact-fit page for SOC 29-2057, the closest available code for this job.
What is the career path from tech?
The occupation's outlook is part of the case for starting here.
BLS's Employment Projections program is a separate series from the OEWS wage counts above, and it includes self-employed workers in its counts.
It projects ophthalmic medical technician employment to grow from 72,500 to 88,000 between 2025 and 2035, a 21.4% increase, with about 11,800 openings a year.
BLS puts typical entry education for the occupation at a postsecondary nondegree award.
The AOA's four certifications give the path its rungs — CPO, CPOA, the technician-level CPOT and the CPOC as the coding credential.
The rungs connect: CPOA can be reached from a current CPO plus six more months of full-time eye care work — one of the CPC's three routes.
The other two run from a CPC-approved optometric assistant program (graduation within the last five years, or last-semester enrollment) and from three-plus years of recent eye care experience with a reference form the CPC approves before you apply.
The CPOT then builds on a current CPOA.
The technician exam's outline runs from case history and acuity through imaging and chairside scribing — the skills the technician-level credential tests.
The skill set also maps onto neighboring jobs.
The AOA's 2026 Paraoptometric Appreciation Month release names optometric scribes, front-office staff and practice managers among paraoptometric staff, alongside opticians and contact lens technicians — the AOA's own framing of one career family.
For pre-optometry students, a tech job is one way to work inside eye care before applying.
Whether optometry schools credit paid technician work as observation or shadowing hours was not established in our research — schools differ, so check each school's admissions guidance before you rely on the hours.
How to find optometric technician jobs
The employers match the settings above: optometric private practice, retail stores and MD offices all appear as employer settings in the CPC's 2025 candidate counts, and retail vision care hires for the chairside job directly — Visionworks advertises its in-store Optometric Assistant role.
Titles run from optometric technician to optometric tech and optometric assistant.
Applications are won on specifics.
A resume that names the equipment you run — autorefractor, tonometer, visual field perimeter, OCT — the diagnostic drops you have instilled under delegation, and the EHR you document in reads differently from a generic customer-service resume.
O*NET flags Microsoft Office tools as frequently requested 'Hot Technologies' in postings for the occupation, and its eye-care EHR examples include AcuityPro and EyeMD EMR.
- Pre-testing you can name: autorefraction, tonometry, visual fields, lensometry
- Visual acuity testing across chart types, including pinhole
- Diagnostic drop instillation as delegated
- EHR documentation and chairside scribing
- CPO, CPOA or CPOT certification current or in progress
When you read a posting, notice how it splits front-of-house and chairside duties — that split hints at how the practice organizes delegation, and what your first months would look like.
The same board works for employers: OptometryHires' hiring hub collects the practice-side guides — job descriptions, interview questions and pay decisions — for owners ready to hire eye care staff.
Career information, not medical, billing, licensing, legal or clinical advice. Certification questions belong to the AOA's Commission on Paraoptometric Certification; delegation and scope questions belong to your state's board of optometry.