Why RBTs leave, according to the BACB's own exit survey

Pay first, then the job around it

Former RBTs name pay first, then the conditions an employer sets. In the Behavior Analyst Certification Board's survey of people whose RBT certification expired in 2024, 57% said inadequate pay influenced their decision to stop working as an RBT. Next came poor treatment by their company (44%), concerning issues in the workplace (42%), and three items at 41%: lack of supervisor support, limited opportunities for professional growth, and the number of hours worked per week, too many or too few. The most-selected answer was not about the job: 58% chose "I like the work, but life took me in a different direction."^[1]

Nearly everything on that list but the last item is set by an employer. The BACB reads its own results the same way: improving pay, scheduling predictability, and supervisor support "may enhance retention," and the BACB "has limited ability to impact any of these issues."^[1] That leaves them with the clinic.

What the survey was

The BACB published the results in its December 2025 newsletter. It sent the survey in February and March 2025 to 30,018 people whose RBT certification had expired in 2024 and who held no other BACB credential. There were 1,386 respondents, a 4.6% response rate. Respondents could select every reason that applied, across four domains, and the newsletter lists each option at least 25% of them chose.^[1]

The full published list:^[1]

Domain	Item	Respondents
Compensation and workload	Inadequate pay	57%
Compensation and workload	High work demands with clients	38%
Compensation and workload	Unpredictable pay	34%
Organizational factors	Concerning issues in the workplace	42%
Organizational factors	Limited opportunities for professional growth	41%
Organizational factors	Number of hours worked per week (too many or too few)	41%
Organizational factors	Unpredictable schedule	38%
Organizational factors	Travel between work sites or commute time/distance	26%
Workplace culture	Poor treatment by my company	44%
Workplace culture	Lack of supervisor support	41%
Workplace culture	Not applicable	34%
Workplace culture	Isolation in the workplace	27%
Personal circumstances	I like the work, but life took me in a different direction	58%

Asked what would bring them back, respondents centered "overwhelmingly on improved compensation, consistent and predictable scheduling, and greater professional support," in the BACB's summary.^[1]

Where the numbers stop applying

To be clear, this survey answers a narrower question than "why do my RBTs quit."

It counts people who left the credential, not people who left a clinic. An RBT who moved to the practice across town and stayed certified is not in it. Anyone holding another BACB credential was excluded, so an RBT who became a BCaBA or BCBA is not in it either.^[1] If most of your departures go to other clinics, this data does not describe them.

Respondents chose to answer. At a 4.6% response rate, the people who wrote back may differ from those who did not, in ways the newsletter cannot show.^[1]

The percentages overlap. Respondents picked every reason that applied, and only items chosen by at least 25% were published.^[1] Pay at 57% means pay was a factor for most of them, not necessarily the deciding one.

It is national. The invited group spanned all 50 states, weighted toward California, Texas, and Florida. Results are not broken out by state, setting, or employer size.^[1]

The data also concedes something plainly. A third of respondents (34%) marked workplace culture not applicable, and the most common answer was a life change.^[1] Some RBTs leave because they were always going to, and no pay scale changes that.

A 2024 study in Behavior Analysis in Practice points the same way. It interviewed 11 RBTs in Florida and found four themes: difficulty establishing and maintaining competency, difficult working conditions, a career seen as temporary or little recognized, and dissatisfaction with pay and benefits. The authors also report that the RBTs' experiences varied considerably across organizations.^[2] Eleven interviews in one state is exploratory, but that last finding is the useful one for an employer: the same job is a different job at different clinics.

What a clinic can look at this quarter

None of these is a fix. Each can be answered from records the clinic already keeps.

How predictable is each RBT's paycheck? Unpredictable pay and unpredictable schedules drew 34% and 38%.^[1] Pull three months of hours per RBT, look at the week-to-week swing, and trace where it came from: cancellations, authorization gaps, caseload changes. Whether to cushion it, and how, is a decision for you and your counsel, and it starts with seeing the spread.

Do scheduled hours match what people asked for? The hours item cut both ways.^[1] Compare each schedule to what the person asked for when hired.

Does supervision have room on the calendar? The BACB requires an RBT to be supervised for at least 5% of service hours each calendar month, with two face-to-face contacts, at least one of them individual.^[3] Lack of supervisor support drew 41%.^[1] How supervision is delivered is your BCBAs' professional judgment, not mine. The operational check is whether their caseloads leave time for the contacts already scheduled.

Is there a visible next step? Under the RBT requirements in effect since January 1, 2026, an RBT earns 12 professional development units per two-year recertification cycle, and in-service training provided by the RBT's own employer is one of three ways to earn them.^[3] The BACB suggests the requirement may help with the growth item.^[1] An in-service calendar planned across the cycle is a next step an RBT can see.

Ask your own people. Hold exit conversations, and stay conversations with the people who remain, using the survey's four domains as the structure. For what it's worth, the stay conversations are the more useful half, because the person can still benefit from the answer.

Where Virida fits, and where it does not

I built Virida, social media autopilot for ABA clinics. Recruiting is one of the focus topics it writes posts for, the kind of post covered in our piece on what a clinic can post without showing clients. That tells people an opening exists. It does nothing about pay, schedules, or supervision, which is where this survey points. Every post waits for someone on your team to approve it, and the trial is two months with no credit card. Whether it is worth an afternoon is your call.