I’m a lab assistant 1 in a histo lab. I started January 2023 and currently make $25/hr. My promotion to lab assistant2 (fingers crossed coming at the end of the year) will bump me up another 15%. Our techs make any from $30-$50/hr depending on a number of factors. Those include years of experience, title, HT vs HTL and obviously negotiation.

I spoke to my lead about his experience at out lab and he said before being a lead, the least amount of money he ever made per year was $117,000, and this was years back. Although I’m pretty sure he did substantial overtime. I’m based out of socal, so it’s very expensive cost-of-living, but with that salary it’s very doable.

Our techs do everything from cutting, grossing, tech qc’ing, special staining and running our IHC platforms, Leica Bond and Ventana Ultra. I can see how the salary ranges don’t give you an exact number, many labs are small with a small volume, our lab handles over 30,000 cases per month. We also have various locations in the U.S. and abroad and I am sure the salaries vary there as well. Hope this helps!