Physical Therapists
Assess, plan, organize, and participate in rehabilitative programs that improve mobility, relieve pain, increase strength, and improve or correct disabling conditions resulting from disease or injury.
Most important skills
- Reading Comprehension
- Active Listening
- Speaking
- Critical Thinking
- Social Perceptiveness
- Service Orientation
- Writing
- Monitoring
Key knowledge
- Customer and Personal Service
- Therapy and Counseling
- Medicine and Dentistry
- Psychology
- Education and Training
- English Language
- Biology
- Administration and Management
What the work involves
- Plan, prepare, or carry out individually designed programs of physical treatment to maintain, improve, or restore physical functioning, alleviate pain, or prevent physical dysfunction in patients.
- Perform and document an initial exam, evaluating data to identify problems and determine a diagnosis prior to intervention.
- Evaluate effects of treatment at various stages and adjust treatments to achieve maximum benefit.
- Administer manual exercises, massage, or traction to help relieve pain, increase patient strength, or decrease or prevent deformity or crippling.
- Instruct patient and family in treatment procedures to be continued at home.
- Confer with the patient, medical practitioners, or appropriate others to plan, implement, or assess the intervention program.
- Review physician's referral and patient's medical records to help determine diagnosis and physical therapy treatment required.
- Record prognosis, treatment, response, and progress in patient's chart or enter information into computer.
Strongest interest areas (O*NET): Social, Investigative, Realistic.
Qualifications and licensing
- Most common education
- Doctoral Degree (47.1% of respondents)
- Related experience
- None (30.4%)
- On-the-job training
- Anything beyond short demonstration, up to and including 1 month (42.4%)
- Preparation level
- O*NET job zone 5: Job Zone Five: Extensive Preparation Needed
- Licensing
- Not yet verified. Check your state licensing board.
Check before planning
- Licensing for Physical Therapists is not yet verified for any state: check the state licensing board before planning.
Limits
- Distributions show what current workers or occupational experts report, not legal minimums.
- Requirements vary by employer and state; time to qualify is not estimated.
Source: O*NET 31.0 Database (USDOL/ETA, CC BY 4.0); BLS Employment Projections · dataset 2026.10.8 · method e3-qualification-1.0.0
Work environment
How the typical conditions of this occupation compare with 911 occupations in O*NET (very low = the lowest fifth).
Levels are relative. Most occupations involve a lot of contact with people, for example, so “very low” can still mean regular contact; the last column shows what workers actually reported.
| Condition | Level | Compared with other occupations | Most common answer (O*NET survey) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Contact with others | Very high | Higher on contact with others than 95% of occupations compared | 94% of surveyed respondents chose “Constant contact with others” |
| Dealing with the public | Very high | Higher on dealing with the public than 93% of occupations compared | 78% of surveyed respondents chose “Extremely important” |
| Teamwork | High | Higher on teamwork than 75% of occupations compared | 73% of surveyed respondents chose “Extremely important” |
| Freedom to make decisions | Very high | Higher on freedom to make decisions than 93% of occupations compared | 82% of surveyed respondents chose “A lot of freedom” |
| Time pressure | High | Higher on time pressure than 78% of occupations compared | 51% of surveyed respondents chose “Every day” |
| Conflict situations | High | Higher on conflict situations than 74% of occupations compared | — |
| Dealing with unpleasant or angry people | Very high | Higher on dealing with unpleasant or angry people than 89% of occupations compared | 32% of surveyed respondents chose “Every day” |
| Consequence of error | Very high | Higher on consequence of error than 81% of occupations compared | 40% of surveyed respondents chose “Very serious” |
Work-pressure profile
- Time pressure: high
- Conflict situations: high
- Dealing with unpleasant or angry people: very high
- Consequence of error: very high
Each part is shown on its own. There is no combined stress score, and conditions vary by employer and role.
Full answer distributions
Contact with others
- No contact with others: 0%
- Occasional contact with others: 0%
- Contact with others about half the time: 0%
- Contact with others most of the time: 6.08%
- Constant contact with others: 93.92%
n = 25, Incumbent 08/2020
Dealing with the public
- Not important at all: 1.94%
- Fairly important: 1.56%
- Important: 6.72%
- Very important: 11.46%
- Extremely important: 78.32%
n = 25, Incumbent 08/2020
Teamwork
- Not important at all: 0%
- Fairly important: 6.08%
- Important: 6.56%
- Very important: 14.83%
- Extremely important: 72.53%
n = 25, Incumbent 08/2020
Freedom to make decisions
- No freedom: 0%
- Very little freedom: 0%
- Limited freedom: 7.23%
- Some freedom: 10.76%
- A lot of freedom: 82%
n = 25, Incumbent 08/2020
Time pressure
- Never: 0.77%
- Once a year or more but not every month: 9.66%
- Once a month or more but not every week: 5.29%
- Once a week or more but not every day: 33.1%
- Every day: 51.18%
n = 25, Incumbent 08/2020
Conflict situations
- Never: 0.77%
- Once a year or more but not every month: 31.04%
- Once a month or more but not every week: suppressed by O*NET (low precision)
- Once a week or more but not every day: 21%
- Every day: 15.7%
n = 25, Incumbent 08/2020
Dealing with unpleasant or angry people
- Never: 0%
- Once a year or more but not every month: 14.13%
- Once a month or more but not every week: 29.12%
- Once a week or more but not every day: 24.49%
- Every day: 32.26%
n = 25, Incumbent 08/2020
Consequence of error
- Not serious at all: 7.72%
- Fairly serious: 8.17%
- Serious: 14.72%
- Very serious: 39.95%
- Extremely serious: 29.44%
n = 24, Incumbent 08/2020
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O*NET-SOC 29-1123.00 · SOC 29-1123 (exact, high confidence) · dataset 2026.10.8