---
title: "What can you do with a nursing degree?"
description: "13 careers nursing graduates commonly move into, with BLS median pay, projected growth and entry requirements for each."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/majors/nursing"
last-updated: "2026-08-23T07:20:09.337Z"
---

# What can you do with a nursing degree?

**What the degree involves:** Anatomy, pharmacology, and clinical placements from early on, with real patients.

Nursing is one of the exceptions to the rule that a major does not choose a career: the degree ends in a licence, and most graduates start at the bedside as a registered nurse. What changes afterwards is the specialty, and whether you go back for the graduate qualification that the advanced practice and management routes need.

13 common destinations, ordered most common first rather than highest paid first. 4 of 13 have a master's or a doctoral or professional degree as their BLS typical entry education, and 13 of 13 are projected to grow. A major is a body of study, not a job assignment: these are destinations of people who took the degree, not what the degree entitles anyone to.

| # | Occupation | Median annual wage | Projected change | Openings a year | Typical entry education |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | [Registered Nurse](https://nuecareer.com/careers/registered-nurse) | $97,550 | +4.9% | 189,100 | Bachelor's |
| 2 | [Critical Care Nurse](https://nuecareer.com/careers/critical-care-nurse) | $97,550 | +4.9% | 189,100 | Bachelor's |
| 3 | [Acute Care Nurse](https://nuecareer.com/careers/acute-care-nurse) | $97,550 | +4.9% | 189,100 | Bachelor's |
| 4 | [Clinical Nurse Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/clinical-nurse-specialist) | $97,550 | +4.9% | 189,100 | Bachelor's |
| 5 | [Nurse Practitioner](https://nuecareer.com/careers/nurse-practitioner) | $132,300 | +40.1% | 29,500 | Master's (graduate study) |
| 6 | [Advanced Practice Psychiatric Nurse](https://nuecareer.com/careers/advanced-practice-psychiatric-nurse) | $97,550 | +4.9% | 189,100 | Bachelor's |
| 7 | Nurse Anesthetist | $236,590 | +8.6% | 2,700 | Master's (graduate study) |
| 8 | Nurse Midwife | $134,040 | +11.1% | 500 | Master's (graduate study) |
| 9 | [Medical and Health Services Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/medical-and-health-services-manager) | $123,860 | +23.2% | 62,100 | Bachelor's |
| 10 | [Health Informatics Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/health-informatics-specialist) | $105,850 | +8.7% | 34,200 | Bachelor's |
| 11 | [Occupational Health and Safety Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/occupational-health-and-safety-specialist) | $90,150 | +12.5% | 14,900 | Bachelor's |
| 12 | [Clinical Data Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/clinical-data-manager) | $120,230 | +33.5% | 23,400 | Bachelor's |
| 13 | Nursing Instructor and Teacher, Postsecondary | $80,250 | +16.8% | 8,600 | Doctorate (graduate study) |

Wages are BLS OEWS, May 2025. Projected change, annual openings and typical entry education are BLS Employment Projections. Occupation descriptions are O\*NET. Nothing on this page is estimated and no figure is generated by an AI model.

Full record for any row, including wage percentiles and state-level pay: https://nuecareer.com/careers/{slug} or https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/{slug}. Other majors: https://nuecareer.com/careers/majors

---

This bank includes information from the O\*NET 30.3 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