Phlebotomist
This occupation's high structural score (73/100) reflects genuinely physical, hands-on clinical work: finding a usable vein on a specific patient's anatomy and adjusting technique in real time for someone anxious or difficult to draw from requires direct physical skill no AI system performs remotely.
We have not ingested real-world usage data for this occupation yet. We show a band only where genuine data exists, rather than estimate one.
What a phlebotomist actually does
Phlebotomists draw blood from patients through venipuncture, arterial collection, and capillary puncture for laboratory testing, blood donation, research, and transfusion purposes. Daily work includes verifying patient identity and physician orders, locating a usable vein on patients with wildly varying anatomy, age, and vein visibility, conducting related screening tests, preparing and labeling specimens accurately for laboratory analysis, maintaining sterile equipment and technique, and documenting chain-of-custody procedures that keep a sample legally and medically traceable.
The work is entirely hands-on, requiring real physical dexterity and moment-to-moment adjustment: an anxious patient, a difficult-to-find vein, or a squeamish reaction all require real-time technique changes no fixed procedure fully anticipates. Phlebotomists work in hospitals, diagnostic laboratories, blood donation centers, and physician offices, and licensing requirements vary considerably by state.
Why it reads this way
This occupation's high structural score (73/100) reflects genuinely physical, hands-on clinical work: finding a usable vein on a specific patient's anatomy and adjusting technique in real time for someone anxious or difficult to draw from requires direct physical skill no AI system performs remotely.
A real, current robotic competitor exists and deserves honest disclosure: Vitestro's Aletta, an autonomous robotic phlebotomy device combining AI, robotics, and imaging to identify a vein and complete a full blood draw, received CE marking in March 2025 and reported a 95% first-stick success rate in trials, with FDA trial partners including Northwestern Medicine, Mayo Clinic, and Baylor Scott & White Health as of mid-2025.
But that deployment remains explicitly experimental and limited to outpatient routine draws as of 2026, not the broad clinical deployment this site's research checklist treats as materially significant. Licensing is real but narrower than most Safe-framed clinical roles on this site: only four states, California, Louisiana, Nevada, and Washington, require phlebotomy-specific state certification or licensure, with national certifications like ASCP and NCCT common but voluntary elsewhere, a real, disclosed gap rather than a uniform legal wall.
BLS projects faster-than-average growth (6%) through 2034, a real, current demand signal consistent with a role where the leading automation attempt remains trial-stage.
Skills this role draws on
We don't yet have task-by-task time-share data for this occupation, so we can't show which specific tasks carry the exposure score above. This is the real skill set instead.
Typical salary range (USD)
$32,100–$58,780
Average: $45,230/yr
Range source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics / O*NET OnLine, 2025
Average source: O*NET OnLine 2025 wage data (Annual Median Wage) for Phlebotomists (31-9097.00); min/max from BLS OEWS May 2025 10th/90th percentile, same-year data
Related careers
Head-to-head comparisons
Phlebotomist scores 73/100, and this site's §2a physical/autonomous-systems-deployment check was applied carefully given a real, current robotic competitor, Vitestro's Aletta, CE-marked in March 2025 with FDA trial partners including Mayo Clinic and Northwestern Medicine. The verdict holds because that deployment remains explicitly experimental and limited to outpatient routine draws as of 2026, not the broad clinical deployment this site treats as materially significant. Licensing is real but narrower than most Safe-framed clinical roles here, only 4 states require phlebotomy-specific licensure, disclosed honestly rather than presented as a uniform wall. BLS projects faster-than-average growth (6%) through 2034, consistent with a role where the leading automation attempt remains trial-stage.
This is a researched judgment (checklist v1.2), not a statistical measurement — it sits alongside, not instead of, the structural exposure signal above. Next scheduled review: 2027-02-19.
Data sources & methodology
Salary data: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics / O*NET OnLine, 2025. Min/max figures represent the 10th–90th percentile annual wage range across the United States. Average figure sourced separately: O*NET OnLine 2025 wage data (Annual Median Wage) for Phlebotomists (31-9097.00); min/max from BLS OEWS May 2025 10th/90th percentile, same-year data.
Automation Risk Score: Based on O*NET occupational analysis (31-9097.00) evaluating task complexity, physical requirements, social intelligence, and environmental variability. Methodology based on research from Frey & Osborne (Oxford, 2017).
Growth projections: 6% (2024-2034, faster than average, per BLS Phlebotomists outlook; ~18,400 annual openings), based on BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook.