Occupational Therapist vs Software Engineer Salary
Software Engineers earn approximately 30.5% more than Occupational Therapists nationally — $124,000 vs $95,000.
Software Engineers earn approximately $29,000 more per year than Occupational Therapists — about 31% — with comparable entry requirements.
What it takes to get in
Occupational Therapist roles typically require a master's degree, while Software Engineer roles require a bachelor's degree. Counting everything it takes to become employable — degree plus any apprenticeship, residency, or licensing exam — that is roughly 6 years for Occupational Therapist and 4 for Software Engineer.
Only one of the two is gated by licensing: Occupational Therapist requires State license via NBCOT certification exam, while Software Engineer does not. That cuts both ways — a license is a real barrier when you are trying to enter, and a real moat once you hold one, because it limits how quickly the labor supply can grow.
Pay range, not just the median
The medians hide most of what matters. Occupational Therapist pay runs from roughly $67,090 at the low end to $129,830 at the high end; Software Engineer runs $76,000 to $208,000. The title sets the band; specialization, employer size, and location decide where inside it you actually sit.
The two bands are shaped differently. Software Engineer top earners make about 2.7× what beginners make, against 1.9× for Occupational Therapist. A wide band means the ceiling rewards specializing and the median understates what is achievable; a narrow one means pay is more predictable and less dependent on landing the right niche.
What the work is actually like
Occupational Therapist: Hospitals, schools, rehab clinics, and patients' homes. Software Engineer: Office or remote, writing/testing code at a computer most of the day.
The physical difference is large enough to affect how long you can do the work: Occupational Therapist work is moderately physical, Software Engineer work largely sedentary. Physically demanding trades often pay well in your twenties and thirties and then force a move into supervision, inspection, estimating, or training — worth planning for rather than discovering at fifty.
Location flexibility is not symmetric here. Software Engineer work can be done fully remotely, while Occupational Therapist work is rarely remote. That changes which metros you can earn a high salary from, and therefore what a given salary is actually worth after housing.
Moving between the two
These two barely touch. Healthcare and Tech draw on separate training pipelines, and employers in one rarely read experience in the other as relevant. Budget for a real reset. Occupational therapy assistants (COTAs) must complete a full graduate program to become OTs; OTs can pivot into ergonomics/human factors consulting or educational settings. Adjacent fields (data engineering, DevOps, QA automation) transfer easily since the core skill is programming; switching in from a non-technical field usually requires 6-12 months of self-study plus shipped projects to pass interviews.
If you are entering rather than switching: Occupational Therapist — Complete a bachelor's degree, then a 2-3 year master's (or doctoral) program in occupational therapy, then pass the NBCOT exam. Software Engineer — CS bachelor's degree with internships during school is the dominant path; a smaller share enter via coding bootcamp plus a public GitHub portfolio and pass technical interviews without a CS degree.
Pay ranges, education requirements, and employment projections come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook and Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics. See our methodology for how these are compiled and updated.
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