Also called: Navy HM-L01A (8494), Navy Deep Sea Diving IDC
Corpsman qualified as a Navy diver who handles diving injuries and runs hyperbaric chambers.
Diving medical techs dive alongside Navy divers, monitor them for decompression sickness, and operate recompression chambers. They support salvage, EOD, and SEAL teams. Civilian hyperbaric centers and commercial diving firms hire this rare skill.
RMC (base pay + housing/food allowances + tax advantage) for typical E-1 to E-7 ranks, 2026 estimate, plus the special-duty, hazardous-duty, or skill pays this specialty usually earns. Enlistment/reenlistment bonuses for this field can be $10k-$50k+.
Approximate: anchored on Bureau of Labor Statistics data for a broader job group.
High school diploma, about 2 years after high school. Hospital corpsman experience, then Navy dive school and diving medicine training (~6 months). Free-college benefits: Tuition Assistance (up to $4,500/yr) while serving, the Post-9/11 GI Bill (36 months of tuition + housing stipend) afterward, and SkillBridge internships before separating.
Ways in: Military, On-the-job training. Training cost: Get paid while you train.
Majors to look at: Paramedicine, Health Sciences.
Growing about average. Military specialties are not in BLS projections. The services recruit for this job every year and openings track force size and retention rather than market growth.
Low risk for 10 years. Diving with Navy divers and running chamber treatments stays hands-on.
Classes: PE / swimming, Biology, Physics.
Career Universe is an early version. Pay, training and AI-risk figures are estimates to start your own research, not verified facts. The research was written with AI research assistants, checked by validation scripts and spot-checked by hand. Check anything important with schools, employers and official sources. How the numbers work.