Optician Job Description And Qualifications

Julian Robinson · Jul 2nd, 2025 · Comments Off

Lovers of fashion and promoters of health may not think twice before becoming opticians. These highly skilled professionals are also known as dispensing opticians. An optician job description explains a duty to prepare prescriptions for eyeglass lenses, help customers with choosing frames, and they also tailor the frames to fit the customers’ unique facial measurements. For those people who use contact lenses instead, the optician’s job is to adjust the fit of the lenses to their eyes.

As an optician your job is to help your costumer to choose enough comfortable new eyeglass frames or contact lenses and wear them as prescribed. A quick consultation with your costumer is needed to consider the type of lenses. As an optician it is important to find out in which context the consumer will use for the frames or lenses. Not every consumer works in an office, some of them work at a construction site so you will have to make a recommendation that suit’s the individual’s lifestyle.

In some ways the dispensing opticians’ job may be analogous to the pharmacist job. The pharmacist dispenses drugs which are based on prescriptions written from an individuals’ physician. The opticians do not work with written prescriptions for lenses, but they are obligated to understand the science and reasoning behind them. People say that to be an optician is to make the life easier, secure and comfortable for those people who must wear prescriptive lenses throughout their life.

Types Of Optician Work

Many dispensing opticians look for any opportunity to work for an optometrist, who owns an office practice or an eyewear store. Some of them work in different types of stores who sell eyeglasses and contact lenses, specialized shops and department stores in need of opticians.

Opticians who are employed in eyewear stores or department stores work on some evenings and sometimes they work through weekends. Those who are employed in optometrists have more regular hours. Generally they all work full-time.

Optician Job Description Qualifications & certification

You must have a high school diploma to become an optician or be GED equivalent approved. Many opticians choose to finish the two-year college and get an associate’s degree. This includes learning the basic anatomy, algebra, eye-anatomy, optical physics, mathematics and other subjects needed to complete their knowledge and take the two to four years job training to take the apprenticeship. Many opticians choose to qualify for voluntary certification by the American Board of Opticianry or National Contact Lens Examiners. The certification is not mandated but some of the customers prefer to work with an optician who has either an ABO or NCLE certification.

Optician Salary and Job Outlook

In 2024, the median annual wage for opticians in the USA was $46,560 according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The BLS also reports that the lowest 10% of opticians earned less than $34,470, while the top 10% earned more than $73,240. This data is from May 2024.