The February 2026 Athletic Trainer Finder Job Market Report: Trends, Salaries, and Red Flags

Kyle Peckham
Mar 5
8 min read

This report is for informational purposes only. It is intended to highlight trends and should not be used as the sole basis for legal or financial decisions. This is not a scientific study design and should not be treated as such.

Last month we broke down 508 job postings and gave you the first real playbook for the AT job market in 2026. The response was overwhelming — so we’re back with an even bigger dataset. This month we tracked 571 unique job postings from February 2026, a 12.4% increase in volume from January. More postings, more data, and this time we’re going deeper: outlier analysis, a “perks war” breakdown, red flag patterns, and the first signs of hybrid/virtual roles entering the profession.

Let’s get into it.

1. The Salary Snapshot

Across all settings and regions, the overall median annual salary is $62,400, with a mean of $64,536. That’s a slight dip from January’s $65,000 median, but this month’s dataset includes a larger share of part-time-to-full-time hourly conversions and a wider range of settings, which likely pulled the median down. The underlying fundamentals haven’t changed dramatically — the money is still in the same places it was last month.

Salary transparency ticked up slightly: 63.0% of postings included specific pay ranges (↑ from 61.6%). Progress, but still over a third of roles leave candidates guessing.

Median Salary by Setting:

Setting	Median Salary	Mean Salary	n
Industrial/Occupational	$70,001	$72,318	38
Other (Military, etc.)	$70,982	$69,988	9
Secondary School	$67,923	$67,784	67
Professional Sports	$67,500	$71,663	7
Clinical/Orthopedic	$60,330	$62,013	101
Collegiate	$57,441	$60,851	82
Overall	$62,400	$64,536	304

Industrial/Occupational remains the top earner for the second straight month. January’s report pegged the Industrial median at $70,803 — February’s $70,001 is virtually identical. These roles continue to reflect the value that manufacturing, logistics, and warehouse employers place on injury prevention.

Collegiate continues to trail the pack at $57,441, weighed down by contract-based roles at small DII/DIII and NAIA institutions. January had it at $57,500 — essentially unchanged.

2. The “Hidden Math”: Pay vs. Cost of Living

This point bears repeating every month: while the highest-paying roles often appear in states like California, New York, and New Jersey, a big number on paper doesn’t always mean a bigger life.

This month’s three highest true salaried roles — Agility Orthopedics in Massachusetts ($95K–$125K), the New York Red Bulls in New Jersey ($100K–$105K), and Foothill-De Anza Community College in California (~$102K) — are all located in high cost of living markets. A $100k salary in the Bay Area or northern New Jersey may not stretch as far as $75k in Texas or the Carolinas. When evaluating these “top-tier” paychecks, always factor in local housing, taxes, and daily expenses to see what you are actually taking home.

The top five states by posting volume were Texas (44), Ohio (40), Florida (34), North Carolina (27), and New York (27), collectively accounting for 30.1% of all postings. If you’re looking for volume and affordability, Texas, Ohio, and the Carolinas keep showing up as the sweet spot.

3. Where the Opportunities Are

The market structure from January held steady in February, with one notable shift: Clinical/Orthopedic roles (including outreach) have pulled away as the dominant employer category.

Setting Distribution:

• Clinical/Orthopedic (incl. Outreach): 37.5% (↑ from 34%)

• Secondary School: 21.7% (↑ from 18%)

• Collegiate: 20.3% (↓ from 21%)

• Industrial/Occupational: 14.5% (↑ from 13.4%)

• Professional Sports: 3.7% (↓ from 4.5%)

• Other (Military, Academia, etc.): 2.3%

Clinical and outreach roles now comprise the single largest market segment — larger than collegiate and secondary school combined. Health systems are the dominant employer in athletic training right now, full stop.

The continued growth of Industrial roles (14.5%) is worth watching. These positions consistently offer higher starting medians and more structured schedules compared to the heavy travel and weekend demands of the collegiate side. January flagged this as a trend. February confirms it.

4. The Top 3 Salaried Roles and the “Desperation Premium”

Every dataset has outliers. But this month, the outliers tell two very different stories — so we’re splitting them up.

The “Desperation Premium”: Collegiate Hourly Rates

Two collegiate roles posted eye-popping hourly rates that reveal what happens when institutions get desperate to fill a vacancy:

• Head Athletic Trainer — Miami University of Ohio: $55–$60/hr through Go4 Contract Services, with a signing bonus, relocation stipend, and CEU subscription on top. That’s a contract-staffing premium — the university needed a Head AT immediately and was willing to pay a third party to make it happen.

• Athletic Trainer — Princeton University: $55/hr with overtime eligibility, meaning the actual take-home during season could push well beyond the base rate. An overtime clause in collegiate athletics is unusual and tells you something about workload expectations.

A word of caution: These rates do not translate to six-figure annual salaries. They are hourly, often temporary or contract-based, and may not include full benefits. But they prove a point: when colleges get desperate, the money is there. The question is why it takes desperation to unlock it.

The Top 3 Actual Salaried Roles

When we filter to true annual salaries — the number on the offer letter — here are the three highest-paying roles in February:

1. Director of Clinical Services — Agility Orthopedics (MA): $95K–$125K

This is the ceiling for clinical/orthopedic ATs who move into management. The role requires leadership over multiple clinicians and program development — proving that ATs with business acumen can command salaries competitive with physical therapy directors.

2. Head Athletic Trainer — New York Red Bulls: $100K–$105K

A head AT role in MLS, based in East Hanover, NJ. Professional sports leadership at the major league level remains one of the few settings where ATs consistently break into six figures on salary alone.

3. Athletic Trainer — Foothill-De Anza Community College District (CA): ~$101,754

Listed as a monthly rate ($7,249–$9,710/mo), this California community college role benefits from the state’s strong public-sector pay scales. A reminder that you don’t need to work at a Power 4 school to earn well in higher education — California’s community colleges quietly offer some of the best compensation in the collegiate space.

The Pattern: The highest true salaries in February share two things in common — leadership titles and location in higher-cost markets. If you want to break the $100K barrier on salary alone, the path runs through clinical management, professional sports leadership, or public-sector roles in states with strong pay scales.

5. The “Perks War”: Benefits as Recruiting Currency

In January we noted that roughly 40% of postings mentioned retirement benefits and 38.6% highlighted some form of bonus. This month we went deeper into the “fine print” to quantify what employers are actually putting on the table beyond salary.

The results tell a clear story: employers are competing on lifestyle.

• PTO / Paid Time Off: 35.2% of postings — the single most frequently cited perk

• CEU / Continuing Education: 22.4% — employers investing in your professional growth

• Tuition Reimbursement: 18.6% — a retention play targeting early-career ATs

• Work-Life Balance language: 11.4% — a notable share of employers explicitly using this phrase

• Sign-On Bonus: 7.9% — most common in industrial and rural outreach roles

• 40-Hour Workweek Emphasized: 6.3% — explicitly anti-overtime positioning

• Housing/Lodging: 6.0% — typical in professional sports and rural settings

• No Weekends: 2.8% — targeting lifestyle-driven ATs

• Relocation Assistance: 2.1% — reserved for hard-to-fill locations

Why This Matters: Over 1 in 10 postings now explicitly mention “work-life balance” in the job description itself — not the benefits boilerplate, the actual pitch to candidates. For a profession historically associated with 60-hour weeks and weekend event coverage, that’s a meaningful signal. Employers are starting to respond to burnout-driven attrition by repositioning AT roles as sustainable careers. If a posting doesn’t address schedule expectations, that silence should be a question in your interview.

6. The Hybrid/Virtual Emergence

No one is working fully remote as an AT — the profession is hands-on by definition. But the data is starting to show early signs of technology-enabled care delivery entering the workflow:

• Virtual care components (7.5%): Postings referencing virtual triage, wellness checks, or remote injury screening

• Remote admin work (4.0%): Home-office time for documentation, care coordination, or program management

• Hybrid role structures (2.5%): Combining in-person clinical work with remote responsibilities

• Telehealth (1.4%): Explicitly named — mostly in multi-site industrial roles

Collectively, roughly 15% of postings referenced some form of virtual, remote, or hybrid component. This isn’t a revolution — it’s a quiet redesign of workflows. Multi-site industrial and outreach employers are leading the way, using virtual triage to stretch one AT across multiple locations without requiring constant windshield time. Worth tracking in March.

7. Red Flags: Patterns in Low-Paying Roles

In January we flagged travel and medical reporting structure as things to watch in the fine print. This month we went further and analyzed the bottom quartile of full-time salaries ($40,000–$55,554; n=61 roles) to identify the patterns that consistently appear at the low end of the pay scale.

Multi-Site Travel (54%): Over half of the lowest-paying roles mentioned travel or multi-site coverage — often 2–4 schools or clinics. Ask how travel is distributed, whether mileage is reimbursed, and whether the schedule is year-round or compressed into a brutal three-month window.

Expanded Duties (44%): Nearly half included language about “additional duties as assigned,” medical assistant tasks, administrative responsibilities, or teaching expectations on top of core AT work. These expanded-scope structures dilute your professional role and rarely compensate for the added responsibility.

Retirement Gaps (49%): Nearly half of bottom-quartile postings made no mention of retirement benefits (401k, 403b, pension) in the job description. While most mentioned some form of benefits broadly, the absence of retirement-specific language at the low end of the pay scale should prompt a direct question.

Collegiate Concentration (44%): 27 of 61 bottom-quartile roles were collegiate, predominantly small DII/DIII and NAIA schools where AT duties bleed into teaching, equipment management, or compliance work.

Medical Reporting remains a key question. Ensuring you report to a medical professional rather than a coach or AD remains a top priority for ATs in 2026. If the posting doesn’t mention it, ask before you apply.

8. The Hiring Calendar: When Roles Actually Start

February’s data reveals a clear split in hiring urgency:

• Immediate Hire (~38 postings, 6.7%): Flagged with “immediate start,” “immediately,” or “immediate opening” language. These clustered in clinical/outreach and industrial settings — places where an unfilled AT position means a direct operational gap.

• Fall 2026 Start (~8 postings, 1.4%): Early-cycle recruiting for next school year. Almost exclusively secondary school and collegiate — schools posting 5–7 months ahead of August start dates.

If you’re a student or early-career AT: The fall recruiting window is open right now. Don’t wait until summer to start applying. The schools that plan well are already posting — and the best roles get filled first.

Important Note on Methodology & Caveats

• Non-Exhaustive: While we make every effort to track as many athletic training opportunities as possible, this report is a snapshot of 571 specific postings from February 2026. It is not an exhaustive list of every job on the market.

• Salary Normalization: Hourly rates were annualized at 2,080 hours. Salary ranges were converted to midpoints. Graduate assistantships, internships, and residency stipends were excluded from median calculations.

• Potential Bias: These data may be biased toward geographic regions with higher reporting volumes (such as Texas, Ohio, and Florida) and employers who use major online job boards.

• This analysis is limited to postings with disclosed salary ranges and may overestimate overall compensation, as non-disclosed roles likely pay less than published ranges. PRN positions may inflate these figures when comparing them to full-time roles. This variable was not controlled for in this analysis.

• Variables: Individual salaries vary based on years of experience, advanced certifications, and specific job responsibilities not fully captured in a high-level data sweep.

A FINAL THOUGHT

The Market is Talking. Are You Listening?

February’s data confirms what January hinted at: the AT job market is diversifying, slowly improving, and getting a little more transparent every month. Industrial is no longer “emerging” — it’s established. Clinical/outreach is the volume leader. And employers are increasingly competing on lifestyle perks — PTO, CEU support, and work-life balance language — not just salary.

But the red flags are real. Low-paying roles still cluster around multi-site travel, expanded duties, and gaps in retirement benefits. The bottom quartile of this profession hasn’t moved much.

Use this report as a starting point. Dig into the specifics, ask the hard questions about travel, reporting structures, and schedule expectations, and choose the path that fits your life — not just your resume.

Looking for more? Check out our weekly job board of current openings to find the role that hits that “sweet spot” for you, and don’t forget to subscribe to the weekly newsletter for the most up to date athletic training job market commentary!