Jobs / Healthcare / 31-9011.00
Massage Therapists
Perform therapeutic massages of soft tissues and joints. May assist in the assessment of range of motion and muscle strength, or propose client therapy plans.
- US jobs
- 98,790
- Median wage
- $58,450 a year
- Job family
- Healthcare
Can agents do the work of massage therapists?
We read the evidence at the level of the job family, Healthcare:
- Task levelPartialOne benchmark, from early 2025. On Stanford's MedAgentBench, where agents do clinical tasks in a simulated electronic health record, the best recorded model completes 69.7% of tasks (Claude 3.5 Sonnet v2). It has no maintained leaderboard, so newer models are not measured. No benchmark in our collection tests work with patients.
- Project levelPartialOnly adjacent evidence. GDPval includes nurses among its 44 occupations. OpenAI reports that GPT-5.5's deliverables won or tied against professionals' work in 84.9% of comparisons across all occupations. No benchmark in our collection tests clinical work over days, such as managing a patient's care.
Benchmarks for the job family
These cover work in healthcare, not always this occupation's tasks.
- 1846 EloClaude Opus 5.5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort, Default Fallback) · 23 Sep 2026Unrated
Typical tasks
From O*NET 31.0. Core tasks first. Few of these tasks have a benchmark today.
- Massage and knead muscles and soft tissues of the body to provide treatment for medical conditions, injuries, or wellness maintenance.
- Apply finger and hand pressure to specific points of the body.
- Confer with clients about their medical histories and problems with stress or pain to determine how massage will be most helpful.
- Maintain massage areas by restocking supplies or sanitizing equipment.
- Treat clients in professional settings or travel to clients' offices and homes.
- Develop and propose client treatment plans that specify which types of massage are to be used.
- Provide clients with guidance and information about techniques for postural improvement and stretching, strengthening, relaxation, and rehabilitative exercises.
- Maintain treatment records.
- Assess clients' soft tissue condition, joint quality and function, muscle strength, and range of motion.
- Refer clients to other types of therapists when necessary.
- Perform other adjunctive therapies or treatment techniques in addition to massage.
- Consult with other health care professionals, such as physiotherapists, chiropractors, physicians, and psychologists, to develop treatment plans for clients.
Other job titles for this occupation (18)
BCMT (Board Certified Massage Therapist) · Bodywork Therapist · Certified Massage Therapist (CMT) · Clinical Massage Therapist · Licensed Massage Practitioner (LMP) · Licensed Massage Therapist (LMT) · Medical Massage Practitioner · MMT (Medical Massage Therapist) · Registered Massage Therapist (RMT) · Soft Tissue Specialist · Deep Tissue Massage Therapist · Masseur · Masseuse · Massotherapist · Mechanotherapist · Rolfer · Spa Massage Therapist · Swedish Masseuse