Healthcare Practitioners
Opticians, Dispensing
Also called: Certified Optician, Contact Lens Technician, Dispensing Optician, Licensed Dispensing Optician (LDO)
US median pay
$47,260
per year, 2025
Job growth 2025–35
+4.2%
about average or slower
Openings a year (US)
5,600
74,300 employed
Typical entry education
High school diploma or equivalent
Preparation 3/5 · Medium preparation
What this job is
Design, measure, fit, and adapt lenses and frames for client according to written optical prescription or specification. Assist client with inserting, removing, and caring for contact lenses. Assist client with selecting frames. Measure customer for size of eyeglasses and coordinate frames with facial and eye measurements and optical prescription. Prepare work order for optical laboratory containing instructions for grinding and mounting lenses in frames. Verify exactness of finished lens spectacles. Adjust frame and lens position to fit client. May shape or reshape frames. Includes contact lens opticians.
What they do day to day
- Measure clients' bridge and eye size, temple length, vertex distance, pupillary distance, and optical centers of eyes, using measuring devices.
- Verify that finished lenses are ground to specifications.
- Evaluate prescriptions in conjunction with clients' vocational and avocational visual requirements.
- Recommend specific lenses, lens coatings, and frames to suit client needs.
- Assist clients in selecting frames according to style and color, and ensure that frames are coordinated with facial and eye measurements and optical prescriptions.
- Maintain records of customer prescriptions, work orders, and payments.
- Heat, shape, or bend plastic or metal frames to adjust eyeglasses to fit clients, using pliers and hands.
- Show customers how to insert, remove, and care for their contact lenses.
- Determine clients' current lens prescriptions, when necessary, using lensometers or lens analyzers and clients' eyeglasses.
- Prepare work orders and instructions for grinding lenses and fabricating eyeglasses.
Skills and knowledge that matter most
Skills
- Service Orientation3.5/5
- Social Perceptiveness3.2/5
- Persuasion3.2/5
- Coordination3.2/5
- Time Management3.0/5
- Judgment and Decision Making3.0/5
- Complex Problem Solving3.0/5
- Instructing2.9/5
Knowledge
- Customer and Personal Service4.9/5
- Sales and Marketing4.2/5
- Mathematics3.9/5
- Production and Processing3.8/5
- Administrative3.8/5
- English Language3.7/5
Importance rated by people working in the job (1 = not important, 5 = extremely important).
Education and preparation
Preparation level 3 of 5 — Medium preparation. Usually vocational training, an associate's degree or an apprenticeship.
Typical entry education (BLS): High school diploma or equivalent.
Highest education of people in this job:
- High school diploma46%
- Associate's degree25%
- Post-secondary certificate25%
Who this job suits
Mostly Conventional
Organising data, details and procedures
Realistic
Hands-on work with tools, machines, plants or animals
Enterprising
Leading, persuading and starting things
Based on the Holland (RIASEC) interest profile for this occupation.