The job
Sterile processing technician salary
The number the federal government measures, the occupation code it measures it under, and the one figure nobody can honestly give you.
The short answer
Sterile processing technicians are counted by the federal government under Medical Equipment Preparers, occupation code 31-9093. As of May 2025 the mean wage is $24.28 an hour and $50,510 a year across 77,420 jobs, with a median hourly wage of $22.93. Read from the BLS on August 8, 2026.
First, the occupation nobody names
Search this question and you will get four different salaries from four different sites, none of which says what it is counting. The reason is that there is no BLS occupation called sterile processing technician. The job is surveyed as Medical Equipment Preparers, code 31-9093.
That code is the whole difference between a number you can check and a number you have to trust. Everything below comes from it.
| Jobs in the occupation | 77,420 |
|---|---|
| Mean hourly wage | $24.28 |
| Mean annual wage | $50,510 |
| Median hourly wage | $22.93 |
| Median annual wage, derived | $47,694 |
Why one row says derived
The BLS publishes an annual figure for the mean and an hourly figure for the median, not an annual median. The derived row applies the bureau's own stated method to the median: Annual wages have been calculated by multiplying the hourly mean wage by a "year-round, full-time" hours figure of 2,080
It is our arithmetic on their number, so it is labelled that way rather than presented as published data.
The gap between the mean and the median
The mean is 5.9% higher than the median. That is not a rounding difference, it is the shape of the distribution: a tail of higher paid technicians pulls the average up, and half the occupation earns less than $22.93 an hour.
Every site in this niche headlines the mean, because it is the bigger number. If you are deciding whether to enter this field, the median is the one that describes the job you are most likely to get.
What the certification is worth, and why no one knows
There is no published figure for the CRCST pay premium. The BLS does not break 31-9093 out by certification status, and no aggregator that claims a premium says where the figure comes from.
What can be said without inventing anything is narrower and more useful: certification is frequently a condition of being hired or of staying hired, which is an argument about access to the job rather than about a raise within it. Anyone quoting you a percentage is quoting something they did not measure.
What the exam costs, in hours
The CRCST exam is $140, and a retake is $140 again. At the median wage that is about 6 hours of work per attempt. In 2025, 5,286 people did not pass, and each of them paid those hours twice.
What is not on this page yet
The state by state breakdown. The BLS publishes it, but its interactive data portal was down for maintenance on the day these figures were read, and this site does not publish numbers it has not read first hand. It goes up when the portal does, with its own date.
Common questions
How much do sterile processing technicians make?
The federal survey puts the mean at $50,510 a year, or $24.28 an hour, as of May 2025. The median hourly wage is $22.93, which means half the occupation earns less than that.
Is sterile processing technician a BLS occupation?
Not by that name. The job is counted under Medical Equipment Preparers, occupation code 31-9093. Any salary figure worth trusting names the occupation it came from, because that is what lets you check it.
Does the CRCST certification pay more?
Nobody publishes a figure for that. The federal survey does not separate certified from uncertified technicians, and the sites that quote a percentage premium do not say where it came from. Certification is commonly required to be hired at all, which is a different argument from a raise.
Why do salary sites disagree with each other?
Because they are measuring different things and mostly do not say so. Self reported aggregator data skews toward whoever bothered to submit a figure, and job posting data reflects what is being advertised rather than what is being paid.