Therapist Salary in Colorado: Counselors, MFTs and Social Workers

Colorado's three medians sit within $4,920 of one another, but they do not sit the same way against their national figures.

Mental health and substance abuse social workers have the highest median, $65,620, 9% above the national $60,280.

Counselors follow at $62,390, 5% above the national $59,350, and marriage and family therapists have the lowest median, $60,700, 9% below the national $66,940.

Nationally, family therapists lead counselors by $7,590 at the median and lead social workers by $6,660; in Colorado both orders reverse, with counselors $1,690 ahead of family therapists and social workers $4,920 ahead of them.

The one ordering that holds is social workers over counselors — by $930 nationally and $3,230 in Colorado.

With the whole spread at $4,920 against a national spread of $7,590, any single Colorado figure would have to hide one of these directions, which is why this page shows all three.

The counselor row is the only one of the three that sits above its national figure at every percentile, and the premium is widest at the floor.

The 10th percentile of $44,060 is 13% above the national $38,940 and the 25th percentile of $49,920 is 6% above the national $47,100; the median of $62,390 is 5% above the national $59,350.

The premium does not narrow step by step up the distribution: the 75th percentile of $80,980 is 6% above the national $76,530, a wider margin than the median's 5%, before the 90th percentile of $100,020 sits just 2% above the national $97,590.

The middle half of the Colorado distribution spans $31,060, slightly wider than the national band of $29,430, while the 10th-to-90th span of $55,960 is slightly narrower than the national $58,650.

BLS estimates 14,920 counselors employed in Colorado, ranking 10th of the 50 jurisdictions that publish an employment estimate.

This is a combined occupation — the figures pool LPCs with substance abuse and behavioral disorder counselors, so they describe no one licence.

Colorado marriage and family therapists are the one occupation of the three whose median sits below its national figure: $60,700, 9% below the national $66,940, with an hourly median of $29.18 against $32.18.

The floor does not follow the median down: the 10th percentile of $47,030 is 5% above the national $44,650 and the 25th percentile of $54,460 is 9% above the national $50,070.

The gap opens above the middle.

The 75th percentile of $74,070 is 21% below the national $93,840, yet the 90th percentile of $128,400 is 4% above the national $123,730 — the middle half of the Colorado distribution spans $19,610, less than half the national band of $43,770, and the top decile sits $54,330 above the 75th percentile against a national stretch of $29,890.

BLS estimates 900 family therapists employed in Colorado.

OEWS does not say why the shape runs this way, and this page does not guess.

Mental health and substance abuse social workers have Colorado's highest median of the three, $65,620, 9% above the national $60,280, and the strongest floor of the three rows.

The 10th percentile of $47,100 is 19% above the national $39,740 and the 25th percentile of $55,770 is 18% above the national $47,070 — the two largest above-national gaps on this page.

The advantage narrows steadily up the distribution: the 75th percentile of $80,990 is 2% above the national $79,730, and the 90th percentile of $95,950 is 8% below the national $104,170, the occupation's only percentile below its national counterpart.

The middle half spans $25,220 against a national band of $32,660.

BLS estimates 1,640 social workers employed in Colorado, and the state's median rank here is 12th of the 51 jurisdictions that publish the occupation.

Start with the occupation the job would be counted in and compare it against that row, not a blended number.

The Colorado hourly medians are $30.00 for counselors, $29.18 for marriage and family therapists and $31.55 for mental health and substance abuse social workers, all three within $2.37 of one another.

The social worker row carries the highest median, but at the 90th percentile the order runs the other way: the family therapist figure of $128,400 is the highest of the three, $28,380 above the counselor 90th percentile of $100,020 and $32,450 above the social worker 90th percentile of $95,950.

An annual offer of $62,390 would sit at the Colorado counselor median, $1,690 above the family therapist median and $3,230 below the social worker median.

A percentile is a position in the state distribution, not a pay step, so an offer at the 25th percentile says where it sits among Colorado jobs in that occupation, not a judgement about the person hired.

None of the three rows is a licence figure.

The counselor row pools LPCs — Colorado's Licensed Professional Counselors — with substance abuse and behavioral disorder counselors, and BLS publishes no LPC-only median for Colorado.

The family therapist row is the closest to a single licence: Colorado licenses marriage and family therapists as the LMFT, with a pre-licensure MFTC registration, but OEWS does not split the row by licence stage, so it cannot say what an MFTC earns.

Clinical social workers holding the LCSW are counted either in this social worker row or in healthcare social work, depending on the setting of the job, so the $65,620 median does not describe every LCSW.

Because OEWS counts jobs rather than licences, no row can be tied to any single Colorado title; the licensure pages linked below carry the requirements.