Addressing Compensation and Workforce Sustainability

By Dylan Orrell

The 2026 NATA Compensation and Workforce Study provides an important look at compensation across the athletic training profession and the challenges athletic trainers continue to face.

While the average salary for full-time certified/licensed athletic trainers increased to $76,297 in 2025, inadequate pay remains the most frequently identified professional challenge, cited by 64% of respondents. Only 29% of respondents said they feel fairly compensated for the work they perform.

Those findings reinforce the importance of giving athletic trainers the information, resources and support they need to advocate for their value while continuing efforts to address the broader factors that influence compensation across the profession.

Know Your Market

Reliable compensation data gives athletic trainers a stronger foundation for evaluating opportunities and having informed conversations with employers. NATA members can compare compensation trends across work settings, experience levels and geographic areas using these tools:

• Compensation Benchmarking Database: Allows users to customize their data search by filtering for specific demographics, credentials and offered benefits.
• 25th Percentile Salary Guidelines: Provides salary benchmarks by work setting, with NATA recommending that job postings meet or exceed the 25th percentile for the applicable setting.

Members are already putting these resources into practice. In fact, 72% of respondents relied on a previous NATA Salary Survey to advocate for a pay increase over the past three years, more than any other resource, including outside salary sites.

These tools help athletic trainers understand where their compensation falls within the marketplace, evaluate opportunities and bring objective data into conversations about salary, benefits and career advancement.

Demonstrate the Value of Athletic Training

Knowing the market is one part of the compensation conversation. Another is helping employers understand and measure the value athletic trainers provide.

NATA's value models and revenue models help athletic trainers demonstrate their clinical, organizational and economic impact. Members are already using them in compensation discussions: 18% of respondents reported using value models and 17% used revenue models to advocate for higher pay in the past three years.

Employer education also plays an important role. Through efforts such as the NATA Employer Partner Program, NATA works to strengthen employers' understanding of the profession and the role athletic trainers play within their organizations.

Together, these efforts help broaden the compensation conversation beyond salary alone and provide athletic trainers with additional ways to demonstrate the value they bring to their workplaces.

Address Broader Barriers

Individual advocacy and employer education are important, but some compensation challenges can’t be addressed at the individual level alone.

NATA continues to work on broader issues that can influence the economic landscape of the profession. Advocacy efforts include advancing third party reimbursement and helping athletic trainers demonstrate their value and seek reimbursement for the services they provide.

Gender pay disparities are another example of a challenge that requires attention beyond individual salary negotiations. The 2026 study found that women's average salary was $70,514 in 2025, compared with $84,640 for men, a difference of $14,126. The gap also widened with years of experience.

NATA has previously developed resources to help address these disparities, including the Gender Equity Toolkit developed by the NATA AT Compensation Task Force Gender Equity Subgroup. Following the release of the 2026 Workforce Study findings, NATA has begun organizing a Gender Pay Equity Task Force to further examine the issue and identify opportunities for action.

The new data provides an important evidence base for that work. It can help identify where disparities persist, inform priorities and provide a benchmark against which future progress can be measured.

From Insights to Action

No single resource or initiative will resolve the compensation challenges facing the athletic training profession. The findings point to a need for action at multiple levels: equipping individual athletic trainers with better information, helping employers recognize and reward the value ATs provide and addressing broader barriers that affect compensation across the profession.

The 2026 NATA Compensation and Workforce Study provides a snapshot of where the profession stands today. What happens next is equally important.

NATA will continue to use these findings to inform research, resources, employer engagement and advocacy, while tracking how the workforce changes over time. By connecting the data with continued action, the Workforce Study can help the profession not only understand its challenges, but measure whether efforts to address them are moving the needle.