Dental Assistant Statistics 2026: Job Market, Pay, Demand & Workforce

DentistryHires had 4,376 open dental assistant listings from 1,780 employers on October 9, 2026.

1,273 were first posted in the previous 14 days and 3,223 in the previous 30 days.

At least 17.7% of dental assistant listings were part-time on October 9, 2026.

Listings that name no schedule are counted as full-time, so the real part-time share is likely higher.

The benefit dental assistant listings named most often on October 9, 2026 was paid time off, in 80.2% of listings, followed by health insurance (68.9%).

A listing that does not mention a benefit may still offer it.

To browse the openings themselves, see all dental assistant listings.

The median dental assistant wage was $48,070 a year in May 2025, and the middle half earned $44,340 to $58,090 (BLS OEWS, SOC 31-9091, May 2025).

Employers hiring dental assistants on DentistryHires advertise a median of $23.50 an hour across 1,305 employers on October 9, 2026; this is advertised pay, not earnings.

For pay by state, percentile and experience, see the dental assistant salary guide, and for the full distribution of posted pay see our quarterly dental assistant pay data release.

California had the most open dental assistant listings on October 9, 2026, with 649 (14.8% of the national total).

Texas followed with 460 (10.5%).

To browse the openings in one state, start with dental assistant openings in California.

1,780 employers had open dental assistant listings on DentistryHires on October 9, 2026, and the five largest posted 39.7% of them.

1,567 employers (88%) had exactly one open dental assistant listing.

BLS projects dental assistant employment to grow 7.4% from 2025 to 2035, from about 388,600 to 417,400 jobs, against 3.5% for all occupations (BLS Employment Projections, 2025–35).

BLS expects about 53,000 dental assistant job openings a year on average from 2025 to 2035, most of them replacement openings rather than newly created jobs (BLS Employment Projections, 2025–35).

Dental assistants are the largest occupation in dental offices, with 354,900 jobs in May 2025, or 33.6% of the industry's employment (BLS OEWS, NAICS 621200).

There are 219 CODA-accredited dental assisting programs in the United States, though many dental assistants train on the job (CODA program directory, September 2026).

For how to enter the field, see the dental assistant career guide.

Listing figures are computed from every active, paid dental assistant listing on DentistryHires at the time shown, and refreshed every six hours.

Listings on a job board are not a random sample of all dental assistant jobs, so read them as a picture of current hiring, not of total employment.

Advertised pay is the midpoint of the range an employer posts, or its single figure, and hourly and annual postings are never converted into each other.

The headline is the employer median: each employer’s own median, then the median across employers, so a group posting hundreds of openings counts once.

A pay figure needs at least 30 listings from 10 employers and is withheld when one employer posted more than half of them.

Federal figures come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the ADA Health Policy Institute and are quoted as published, with the year in each sentence.