Pharmacy Technician Salary Calculator

1. Leave the pay type on hourly rate and enter your base rate. Choose annual salary for a salaried lead technician or buyer role.
2. Enter regular hours, weeks worked, and any average overtime hours with the multiplier your employer pays.
3. Read your gross pay per year, month and week, then the BLS percentile. Enter a second offer to compare two pharmacies.

What each result tells you:

The default is the BLS median rate of $22.00 an hour, which comes to $45,760.00 for a 40 hour week over 52 weeks.

A pharmacy technician salary calculator is a tool that works out gross pay from an hourly rate and a schedule, then measures the rate against official wage statistics for the occupation.

The benchmark is the Bureau of Labor Statistics code 29-2052, Pharmacy Technicians. BLS defines the job as preparing medications under the direction of a pharmacist. Technicians measure, count, package and label prescriptions, manage inventory and process insurance claims. A pharmacist reviews each prescription before it reaches the patient.

Retail technicians use the tool to check a rate against the national range. Hospital applicants use it to compare an offer with their current store pay. Students use it to see what the job pays before training.

The tool adds no premium for certification, setting, compounding work or years of service. BLS publishes no national multipliers for those, so the calculator does not invent them.

The calculator totals straight-time pay and overtime pay for the year, then finds where your base rate falls among the BLS wage percentiles.

1. Rate. The hourly rate is used directly. A salary is divided by regular hours times weeks.
2. Overtime. Overtime hours are paid at the rate times your multiplier. Federal law sets a minimum of time and one-half after 40 hours in a workweek for covered, nonexempt employees. The overtime pay calculator covers a single pay period in detail.
3. Periods. Monthly pay is the annual total divided by 12. Weekly pay is the annual total divided by weeks worked.
4. Benchmark. A rate of $19.25 falls between the 25th percentile of $18.20 and the median of $22.00. Interpolation puts it near the 32nd percentile.

BLS wages cover straight-time pay only. Overtime pay, shift differentials and holiday premium pay are excluded, which is why the percentile ignores your extra hours.

A retail pharmacy technician earns $19.25 an hour for 40 hours a week, all year. Short staffing adds an average of 3 overtime hours a week at time and one-half.

1. Straight-time pay: $19.25 x 40 x 52 = $40,040.00.
2. Overtime rate: $19.25 x 1.5 = $28.88 an hour, rounded to the cent.
3. Overtime pay: $19.25 x 1.5 x 3 x 52 = $4,504.50.
4. Annual gross: $44,544.50. Monthly gross: $3,712.04. Weekly gross: $856.63.
5. Base rate against BLS: -$2.75 an hour against the median, or -12.5%.

The overtime adds 11.2 percent to straight-time pay. Annual gross pay of $44,544.50 still falls short of the BLS median annual wage of $45,750, and BLS does not count overtime in that figure.

Pharmacy technicians earned a median of $22.00 an hour in May 2025, or $45,750 a year. The mean was $22.41 an hour, or $46,620 a year.

Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, SOC 29-2052 Pharmacy Technicians, national estimates. Read on 2026-10-02. BLS published a dollar figure for every percentile of this occupation.

The 10th and 25th percentiles are only $0.88 an hour apart. The gap from the 25th percentile to the median is $3.80, so a small raise near the bottom of the range moves the percentile a long way.

Retail or Hospital

Hospitals paid pharmacy technicians a median of $50,760 a year. Pharmacies and drug retailers paid $39,240 and employ 51 percent of the occupation. The hospital median is $11,520 higher, or 29.4 percent.

Highest Paying Industries

The federal executive branch pays the highest hourly mean, $32.36. Psychiatric hospitals and specialty hospitals also appear in the top five.

State

Washington pays the highest state mean wage at $29.39 an hour. Texas has the most pharmacy technician jobs, 41,740.

Duties

BLS notes that hospital technicians prepare a greater variety of medications, such as intravenous medications. In many states trained technicians also give vaccines under pharmacist supervision. BLS publishes no separate wage for these duties.

Certification and State Rules

Most states regulate pharmacy technicians, and some states and employers require certification. BLS says certification may make it easier to get a job. It reports no wage by certification status.

Pharmacy technicians have the highest median hourly wage of the three large entry-level clinical support jobs, $0.03 above medical assistants and $0.25 above phlebotomists.

Source: BLS OEWS national estimates, May 2025. Read on 2026-10-02.

BLS groups pharmacy technicians with health technologists and technicians, whose median is $58,180. The pharmacy technician median is $12,430 below that figure and 10.3 percent below the $50,980 median for all occupations.

Moving from a Store to a Hospital

Enter your store rate and the hospital offer. At 40 hours a week, $23.40 an hour pays $9,672.00 more a year than $18.75 and moves the rate from the 29th to the 67th percentile.

Pricing a Part-Time Schedule

BLS says part-time work is common in this job. At $20.00 an hour for 28 hours a week, annual gross pay is $29,120.00.

Checking a Salaried Lead Role

A salary of $52,000 for a 40 hour week equals $25.00 an hour, near the 78th percentile. The hourly vs salary guide covers what changes with salaried status.

Valuing Holiday-Season Overtime

Add your average extra hours and the multiplier. The overtime pay per year shows the value before tax.

Pharmacy technicians usually need a high school diploma or equivalent. Some learn through on-the-job training that typically lasts less than 1 year. Others complete a postsecondary program, and many programs award a certificate after 1 year or less.

BLS projects employment to grow 6 percent from 2025 to 2035, faster than the average for all occupations. That is 30,100 new jobs, for a total of 501,300.

About 44,700 openings are projected each year. BLS expects technicians to take on tasks that pharmacists used to do, such as collecting patient information and handling prescription transfers, as pharmacists spend more time on patient care.

1. Comparing a Retail Rate with a Hospital Median

The two settings pay differently. Compare offers inside the same setting first, then against the national range.

2. Adding Overtime to the Base Rate

BLS wages exclude overtime pay. Keep extra hours in the overtime field.

3. Treating Part-Time Annual Pay as Low Pay

A 28 hour week lowers annual pay, not the hourly percentile. Read both percentile rows.

4. Using a State Figure as the National Benchmark

Washington and California means are far above the national mean of $22.41.

5. Confusing Pharmacy Technicians with Pharmacy Aides

BLS reports pharmacy aides under a different code, 31-9095. This page covers technicians only.

The gross pay arithmetic is exact, and the benchmark is a sample estimate. BLS lists a relative standard error of 0.2 percent for the mean wage and 0.6 percent for employment in this occupation.

Pharmacy technicians earned a median of $22.00 an hour in May 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The 25th percentile was $18.20 and the 75th percentile was $24.04.

The mean annual wage was $46,620 in May 2025, and the median was $45,750. Both figures assume a full-time year of 2,080 hours.

Yes, at the median. BLS reports $50,760 a year in hospitals and $39,240 in pharmacies and drug retailers for May 2025, a difference of $11,520.

Eighteen dollars an hour is low for the occupation. It sits near the 22nd percentile nationally and equals $37,440.00 over a 2,080 hour year.

The 90th percentile wage is $29.35 an hour, or $61,040 a year. The federal executive branch has the highest industry mean at $32.36 an hour.

Washington has the highest mean wage at $29.39 an hour in the BLS May 2025 data. California, Oregon, Alaska and the District of Columbia follow.

BLS publishes no wage by certification status. It states that some states and employers require certification and that it may make it easier to get a job. Compare postings in your area to see the local difference.

Yes, but few do on base pay. Sixty thousand dollars over 2,080 hours is $28.85 an hour, just under the 90th percentile of $29.35.

Covered, nonexempt employees do. Federal law requires at least time and one-half the regular rate for hours over 40 in a workweek. Ask your employer which status applies to your job, because state rules differ.

Yes. BLS projects 6 percent growth from 2025 to 2035, faster than the average, with about 44,700 openings each year.

• BLS OEWS Profiles, May 2025 (US Bureau of Labor Statistics). Choose May 2025 and select 29-2052 Pharmacy Technicians for the national wage percentiles, mean wage, employment, and industry and state tables. Read 2026-10-02.
• BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook: Pharmacy Technicians (US Bureau of Labor Statistics). Duties, entry education, training, median pay by industry and the 2025 to 2035 outlook. Read 2026-10-02.
• BLS OEWS frequently asked questions (US Bureau of Labor Statistics). Defines wages as straight-time gross pay without overtime or shift differentials, and names who the survey covers. Read 2026-10-02.
• Overtime pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act (US Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division). Time and one-half the regular rate after 40 hours in a workweek for covered, nonexempt employees. Read 2026-10-02.