Work Environment

Marriage and family therapists held about 73,200 jobs in 2020. The largest employers of marriage and family therapists were as follows:

Individual and family services - 28%
Offices of other health practitioners - 22%
Self-employed workers - 15%
Outpatient care centers - 11%
State government, excluding education and hospitals - 6%

Marriage and family therapists work in a variety of settings, such as mental health centers, substance abuse treatment centers, and hospitals. They also work in private practice and in Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs), which are mental health programs that some employers provide to help employees deal with personal problems.

Work Schedules

Marriage and family therapists generally work full time. Some therapists work evenings and weekends to accommodate their clients’ schedules.

Job Outlook

Employment of marriage and family therapists is projected to grow 16 percent from 2020 to 2030, much faster than the average for all occupations.

About 8,500 openings for marriage and family therapists are projected each year, on average, over the decade. Many of those openings are expected to result from the need to replace workers who transfer to different occupations or exit the labor force, such as to retire.

Employment

Growth is expected due to the increasing use of integrated care, which is a treatment of multiple problems at one time by a group of specialists. In providing integrated care, marriage and family therapists are working with counselors such as substance abuse, behavior disorder, or mental health counselors to address patients' issues as a team.

Earnings

The median annual wage for marriage and family therapists was $49,880 in May 2021. The median wage is the wage at which half the workers in an occupation earned more than that amount and half earned less. The lowest 10 percent earned less than $37,050, and the highest 10 percent earned more than $96,520.

In May 2021, the median annual wages for marriage and family therapists in the top industries in which they worked were as follows: