---
title: "Congenital Heart Surgeon"
description: "Heart surgeon who repairs heart defects present from birth, operating on newborns, children and adults with congenital heart disease."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/congenital-heart-surgeon"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Congenital Heart Surgeon

**Category:** Healthcare Practitioners and Technical · **SOC code:** 29-1243 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 29-1243.00

Heart surgeon who repairs heart defects present from birth, operating on newborns, children and adults with congenital heart disease.

Also advertised as: Pediatric Cardiac Surgeon; Congenital Cardiac Surgeon; Pediatric Cardiothoracic Surgeon; Pediatric Heart Surgeon.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $559,030 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $268.76/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $215,410 to $726,660, with the middle half between $336,380 and $583,200
- **Total US employment:** 1,190
- **Typical entry education:** Doctorate
- **Preparation required:** Considerable preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Five: Extensive Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +2.0% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 0 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** not scored for this occupation

## Pay

National wage distribution, BLS OEWS, May 2025, across 1,190 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $215,410 |
| 25th | $336,380 |
| 50th (median) | $559,030 |
| 75th | $583,200 |
| 90th | $726,660 |
| Mean (average) | $502,050 |

### Pay by state

The 4 highest-paying states, by median annual wage. The cost-of-living-adjusted column divides the state median by that state's BEA Regional Price Parity, so the columns answer different questions: the first is what the job pays there, the second is what that pay buys there.

| State | Median annual wage | Cost-of-living adjusted | Employment |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| OH | $488,160 | $526,182 | Not published by BLS |
| NY | $378,110 | $350,358 | 90 |
| NJ | $288,930 | $265,548 | Not published by BLS |
| TX | $239,200+ | Not comparable (top-coded) | 300 |

Values shown as $239,200+ exceed the BLS publication ceiling; exact figures are not published.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 1,300 in the 2025–2035 base year to 1,300 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 0 jobs, or +2.0%. Slower than average: 2.0% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 0 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2025–2035.

## How to get in

- **Typical entry education:** Doctoral or professional degree (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Considerable preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone Five: Extensive Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** None.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** Internship/residency.

## What the work involves

- Repair septal defects, valve abnormalities and malformed great arteries in infants and children
- Perform staged palliation operations for single-ventricle heart disease
- Plan repairs using echocardiography, cardiac MRI, catheterization data and 3D heart models
- Operate on adults with congenital heart disease who need reoperation
- Place mechanical circulatory support and take part in pediatric heart transplantation
- Counsel families before and after surgery on risks, recovery and long-term outlook
- Coordinate postoperative care with pediatric cardiac intensive care teams

## Who it suits

O\*NET rates every occupation on the six Holland (RIASEC) interest areas, on a 1–7 scale. This occupation's strongest areas are Investigative (I), Realistic (R), Social (S).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| I — Investigative | 6.52 |
| R — Realistic | 5.24 |
| S — Social | 5.09 |
| C — Conventional | 3.91 |
| E — Enterprising | 2.43 |
| A — Artistic | 1.55 |

### Personality fit

These scores are **derived by NueCareer**, not published by any government agency: they are cosine similarities between a personality type's trait profile and this occupation's O\*NET interest and work-style ratings, expressed 0–100. Treat them as a starting point for exploration, not as evidence that a type belongs in a job.

| Type | Fit score (0–100) |
| --- | --- |
| ISTP | 69.7 |
| ISTJ | 69.6 |
| INTJ | 62.8 |
| ISFJ | 61.7 |
| ISFP | 58.8 |

Best-fitting types: ISTP, ISTJ.

## Related occupations

O\*NET's primary related occupations, in its own ranked order.

- [Pediatric Surgeon](https://nuecareer.com/careers/pediatric-surgeon) — median $559,030
- [Orthopedic Surgeon, Except Pediatric](https://nuecareer.com/careers/orthopedic-surgeon) — median $358,550
- [Ophthalmologist, Except Pediatric](https://nuecareer.com/careers/ophthalmologist) — median $300,080
- [Urologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/urologist) — median $265,930
- [Anesthesiologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/anesthesiologist) — median $391,490
- [Dermatologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/dermatologist) — median $328,730
- [Cardiologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/cardiologist) — median $496,010
- [Emergency Medicine Physician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/emergency-medicine-physician) — median $335,550
- [General Internal Medicine Physician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/general-internal-medicine-physician) — median $256,560
- [Neurologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/neurologist) — median $248,560

## Sources

- **O\*NET** — O\*NET 31.0 Database, August 2026. https://www.onetcenter.org/database.html
- **BLS OEWS** — BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. https://www.bls.gov/oes/
- **BLS EP** — BLS Employment Projections, Table 1.2, 2025–2035. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **BEA RPP** — BEA Regional Price Parities by State, 2024. https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-parities-state-and-metro-area

---

This bank includes information from the O\*NET 31.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). O\*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. NueCareer has transformed the data by joining it to BLS wage and projection data and deriving facet, personality-fit and AI-resilience scores. BLS and BEA data are public domain (17 U.S.C. §105).

O\*NET content is used under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). How these figures are sourced and derived: https://nuecareer.com/careers/methodology

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