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Dental Assistants

SOC 31-9091 · 2024-2034

Perform limited clinical duties under the direction of a dentist. Clinical duties may include equipment preparation and sterilization, preparing patients for treatment, assisting the dentist during treatment, and providing patients with instructions for oral healthcare procedures. May perform administrative duties such as scheduling appointments, maintaining medical records, billing, and coding information for insurance purposes.

How the U.S. Department of Labor describes this work. Published in English only.

What California expects of this job

Typical pay in California
$51,379per year
Projected openings
81,180
Projected change
+10%
Usually needs
Postsecondary non-degree award

Bright Outlook — a U.S. Department of Labor designation
Rapid Growth

The Department's own designation, made from its national projections. It is not this project's assessment and it is not California's: every other figure on this page comes from California's projection, which can point the other way and for some occupations does.

Skills this work uses most

O*NET, the U.S. Department of Labor's occupation database, rates how important each of these is to this work, and they are listed in that order, most important first. The ratings themselves are not shown, because the data carries the number without the scale it was measured on. The names are as published, in English.

  1. Active Listening
  2. Speaking
  3. Reading Comprehension
  4. Monitoring
  5. Active Learning
  6. Service Orientation

Pay by region

RegionTypical pay in CaliforniaProjected openings
San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara MSA (San Benito and Santa Clara Counties)$66,4374,260
San Francisco-San Mateo-Redwood City MD (San Francisco and San Mateo Counties)$64,4793,380
Santa Rosa-Petaluma MSA (Sonoma County)$64,400950
Oakland-Fremont-Berkeley MD (Alameda and Contra Costa Counties)$64,3956,280
San Rafael MD (Marin County)$64,393710
Vallejo MSA (Solano County)$61,932850
North Valley-Northern Mountains Region (Colusa, Glenn, Lassen, Modoc, Nevada, Plumas, Sierra, Siskiyou, Tehama, and Trinity Counties)$61,788420
Sacramento-Roseville-Folsom MSA (El Dorado, Placer, Sacramento, and Yolo Counties)$60,9555,310
Napa MSA (Napa County)$60,359230
North Coast Region (Del Norte, Humboldt, Lake, and Mendocino Counties)$59,227500
Eastern Sierra-Mother Lode Region (Alpine, Amador, Calaveras, Inyo, Mariposa, Mono, and Tuolumne Counties)$58,970260
Oxnard-Thousand Oaks-Ventura MSA (Ventura County)$56,9851,340
El Centro MSA (Imperial County)$55,546190
Salinas MSA (Monterey County)$53,417640
San Luis Obispo-Paso Robles MSA (San Luis Obispo County)$51,884590
Santa Cruz-Watsonville MSA (Santa Cruz County)$51,473580
Santa Maria-Santa Barbara MSA (Santa Barbara County)$50,979870
Hanford-Corcoran MSA (Kings County)$50,486310
Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario MSA (Riverside and San Bernardino Counties)$50,4248,920
Yuba City MSA (Sutter and Yuba Counties)$49,992370
Chico MSA (Butte County)$49,457330
Stockton-Lodi MSA (San Joaquin County)$49,3651,170
Visalia MSA (Tulare County)$49,293670
Merced MSA (Merced County)$48,768290
Modesto MSA (Stanislaus County)$48,7681,330
Bakersfield-Delano MSA (Kern County)$48,6761,410
Redding MSA (Shasta County)$48,213290
Fresno MSA (Fresno and Madera Counties)$48,0592,090
Anaheim-Santa Ana-Irvine MD (Orange County)$47,8408,910
San Diego-Chula Vista-Carlsbad MSA (San Diego County)$47,7406,330
Los Angeles-Long Beach-Glendale MD (Los Angeles County)$47,62818,460

What the pay actually ranges across

The lowest-paid tenth earn under
$39,773
A quarter earn under
$47,442
Half earn under
$51,379
Three quarters earn under
$62,207
The highest-paid tenth earn over
$75,567

A median is one point. These are the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics' 2026 figures for California, and they say how far apart the people doing this job actually are. Read them as the spread across everyone already in the work — not as a starting wage and not as a promise about where anyone lands.

Similar work

O*NET, the U.S. Department of Labor's occupation database, names these as occupations involving work similar to this one — its own reading of the job, not a grouping by code. They keep O*NET's order, and only those California publishes a projection for are shown.

OccupationTypical pay in CaliforniaProjected openingsProjected change
Dental Hygienists$128,42717,950+10.7%
Medical Assistants$50,918175,850+22.7%
Ophthalmic Medical Technicians$56,0154,340+33.3%
Dental Laboratory Technicians$48,4925,390-2.1%
Healthcare Support Workers, All Other$50,37432,750+7.1%
Surgical Technologists$83,5868,420+11.6%

Programs that train for this job — 59