Therapist Salary in Maryland: Counselors, MFTs and Social Workers

Set against their own national figures, the three Maryland medians all point up, by very different margins.

The counselor median of $59,530 is $180 above the national $59,350 — effectively level — while the family therapist median of $69,900 is $2,960, or 4%, above, and the social worker median of $73,580 is $13,300, or 22%, above.

The spacing between the rows changes as well.

Nationally, family therapists lead counselors by $7,590 and lead social workers by $6,660; in Maryland, social workers lead family therapists by $3,680 and lead counselors by $14,050, so the occupation that trails the family therapist row nationally carries the state's highest median.

Any one Maryland figure for the whole title would have to hide that reversal, which is why this page shows all three.

Maryland counselor pay is compressed toward the middle: the floor sits well above national and the ceiling below it.

The 10th percentile of $44,050 is $5,110, or 13%, above the national figure, and the 25th percentile of $50,030 is $2,930, or 6%, above.

The median of $59,530 is $180 above the national median, and from there Maryland falls behind: the 75th percentile of $73,220 is $3,310, or 4%, below the national $76,530, and the 90th percentile of $91,980 is $5,610, or 6%, below the national figure.

The middle half of the distribution spans $23,190 against the national band of $29,430, and the 10th-to-90th span is $47,930 against $58,650.

For someone weighing a counselor offer, the state median and floor are higher benchmarks than their national counterparts, and the state ceiling is lower.

This is a combined occupation, so the figures describe every kind of counselor it pools, not one licence.

BLS estimates 9,730 counselors employed in Maryland, 17th of the 50 jurisdictions that publish an employment estimate; by median the state ranks 26th of 51.

Maryland marriage and family therapists have a median of $69,900, $2,960 above the national median of $66,940, a difference of 4%.

The hourly median is $33.61 against $32.18 nationally.

By median, Maryland ranks 13th of the 45 jurisdictions that publish one for the occupation.

This is also the row to read with the most caution: BLS estimates only 460 marriage and family therapists employed in Maryland, and on a count that small the percentile table can swing sharply between releases, so this page quotes only the row's median, hourly median and employment estimate.

At the median the row sits $3,680 below the social worker row and $10,370 above the counselor row.

OEWS does not say why the median sits where it does, and this page does not guess.

Mental health and substance abuse social workers in Maryland have a median of $73,580, $13,300 above the national median of $60,280, a difference of 22%.

The gap runs through the upper middle: the 75th percentile of $94,690 is $14,960, or 19%, above the national $79,730, while the 90th percentile of $104,000 sits $170 below the national figure, so the two distributions meet at the top.

The floor is closer to national: the 25th percentile of $49,440 is $2,370, or 5%, above, and the 10th percentile of $38,100 is $1,640, or 4%, below.

The middle half spans $45,250, wider than the national band of $32,660.

The hourly median is $35.37 against $28.98 nationally.

By median, Maryland ranks 5th of the 51 jurisdictions that publish one for this occupation, and BLS estimates 2,250 employed, 17th of 50 by employment.

Start with the occupation the job would be counted in, and compare against that row rather than a blended number.

An offer at $59,530 matches the Maryland counselor median but sits $10,370 below the family therapist median of $69,900 and $14,050 below the social worker median of $73,580.

Hourly postings read the same way: the Maryland hourly medians are $28.62 for counselors, $33.61 for marriage and family therapists and $35.37 for mental health and substance abuse social workers, against national hourly medians of $28.53, $32.18 and $28.98.

The counselor hourly median of $28.62 is $0.09 above its national counterpart, mirroring the near-level annual medians.

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 Maryland jobs in that occupation, not a judgement about the person hired.

None of the three rows is a licence figure.

The counselor row pools the LGPC and the LCPC with substance abuse and behavioral disorder counselors, and BLS publishes no LCPC-only median for Maryland.

The family therapist row is the closest to a single licence, an occupation of its own for marriage and family therapists, whom Maryland licenses as the LCMFT with the LGMFT as its pre-licensure tier, but OEWS does not split it by licence stage, so it cannot say what an LGMFT earns.

In social work, Maryland's titles include the LMSW and the clinical LCSW-C, and social workers holding the LCSW-C are counted either in this social worker row or in healthcare social work, depending on the setting, so the $73,580 median does not describe every LCSW-C.

The licensure pages linked below own the requirements for each title.

One row on this page carries the small-sample flag: marriage and family therapists, whose Maryland employment estimate is 460.

The count behind that row's percentiles is known and small, so its percentile table can swing sharply from one release to the next.

Because of that flag, this page quotes only the row's median, hourly median and employment estimate in prose; the full percentile table, carrying the amber caveat, sits in the family therapists section above.

The $69,900 median is a published figure, and it should be read with that uncertainty attached rather than as a settled benchmark.

The counselor and social worker rows rest on employment estimates of 9,730 and 2,250, counts large enough that neither carries the flag.