Physical Therapist Assistant Salary in Oklahoma 2026,
$59,480 Median | BLS Data by City

A median $59,480 a year, or $28.60 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025, with the middle half between $50,240 and $73,890 and a full range of $24,960 to $79,860. That is 13.0% below the $68,380 national median, though the state's 75th percentile clears the national median by more than five thousand dollars.

Lawton at $64,660, ahead of Tulsa at $59,910 and Oklahoma City at $58,850. Lawton leading the table is the kind of inversion a small market produces — a single large employer or a concentration of skilled nursing capacity can move a local figure when the sample is modest.

Through the State Board of Medical Licensure and Supervision, which licenses physical therapist assistants alongside physical therapists and physician assistants. You need graduation from a CAPTE-accredited PTA programme and a passing score on the National Physical Therapy Examination for assistants, plus continuing education for renewal. You practise under the direction and supervision of a licensed physical therapist, and Oklahoma's rules set how much of that supervision must be on-site.

A location quotient of 1.93 — nearly twice the national rate per worker, and the highest concentration in this batch — reflects a rehabilitation delivery model built around assistants rather than around therapists. Oklahoma's physical therapist concentration is below the national average while its assistant concentration is nearly double it, which means a great deal of hands-on treatment here is delivered by assistants under therapist direction. Skilled nursing and home health are where that model is most pronounced.

Hours, not rate. It sits more than twenty-five thousand dollars below the 25th percentile of $50,240 — a step far larger than any other in the band, and the unmistakable signature of part-time and partial-year workers being counted in an annual wage series. Home health work paid per visit is often part-time by design. A full-time Oklahoma physical therapist assistant should read the $50,240 to $73,890 range as the realistic market.

It means Oklahoma has structured rehabilitation around your role, which is both an opportunity and a constraint. The opportunity is volume: with nearly twice the national concentration and 22% projected national growth, work is abundant and easy to find, particularly in skilled nursing and home health. The constraint is price: abundant supply is precisely why the median sits 13.0% below the national figure. The two facts together suggest a clear strategy — do not compete on availability, which is oversupplied, but on setting and specialisation, because the $73,890 seventy-fifth percentile clears the national median and belongs to home health and senior skilled nursing roles rather than to general outpatient work.

The bottom of the band is not a wage, it is a schedule. The $24,960 tenth percentile reflects part-time and per-visit work counted annually, and including it makes the band look far wider than the full-time market actually is. The $28.60 hourly median is the cleaner benchmark. Beyond that, the figure blends outpatient orthopaedic, skilled nursing, home health and school-based practice, which pay quite differently, and it excludes the per-visit and productivity arrangements common in home health that account for much of the upper band.

Setting, decisively. Home health and skilled nursing pay above general outpatient work and occupy the $73,890 seventy-fifth percentile and the $79,860 ninetieth — and home health per-visit arrangements can exceed that for a full caseload. Geography is a modest lever with under six thousand dollars between Lawton at $64,660 and Oklahoma City at $58,850. Beyond that, lead and rehabilitation coordinator roles add responsibility pay, and for those wanting a bigger step, a CAPTE-accredited doctor of physical therapy programme leads to a band whose median is well above this one.