--- title: "Nurse Practitioner" description: "Diagnose and treat acute, episodic, or chronic illness, independently or as part of a healthcare team. May focus on health promotion and disease…" canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/nurse-practitioner" last-updated: "2026-08-23T15:56:39.581Z" --- # Nurse Practitioner **Category:** Healthcare Practitioners and Technical · **SOC code:** 29-1171 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 29-1171.00 Diagnose and treat acute, episodic, or chronic illness, independently or as part of a healthcare team. May focus on health promotion and disease prevention. May order, perform, or interpret diagnostic tests such as lab work and x rays. May prescribe medication. Must be registered nurses who have specialized graduate education. Also advertised as: ACNP (Acute Care Nurse Practitioner); Adult Nurse Practitioner; Advanced Practice Registered Nurse (APRN); ARNP Specialist (Advanced Registered Nurse Practitioner Specialist); Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP); Family Practice Certified Advanced Registered Nurse Practitioner; Gastroenterology Nurse Practitioner; Nurse Practitioner (NP). ## At a glance - **Median annual wage:** $132,300 (BLS OEWS, May 2025) - **Median hourly wage:** $63.61/hr - **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $101,340 to $174,420, with the middle half between $117,990 and $156,700 - **Total US employment:** 323,040 - **Typical entry education:** Master's - **Preparation required:** Considerable preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Five: Extensive Preparation Needed" - **Projected growth:** +40.1% over 2024–2034 (BLS EP, 2024–2034) - **Annual job openings:** 29,500 openings a year - **AI-resilience score:** 43/100 — a NueCareer heuristic over O\*NET work activities and context, not a BLS or O\*NET figure ## Pay National wage distribution, BLS OEWS, May 2025, across 323,040 US jobs. | Percentile | Annual wage | | --- | --- | | 10th | $101,340 | | 25th | $117,990 | | 50th (median) | $132,300 | | 75th | $156,700 | | 90th | $174,420 | | Mean (average) | $137,300 | ### Pay by state The 15 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 | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | CA | $168,520 | $152,204 | 25,120 | | NJ | $159,310 | $146,418 | 9,950 | | WA | $156,100 | $145,870 | 6,700 | | OR | $155,680 | $150,618 | 2,820 | | AK | $155,170 | $151,594 | 710 | | NY | $153,510 | $142,243 | 22,890 | | MA | $142,440 | $134,686 | 8,070 | | NV | $140,670 | $140,700 | 1,930 | | CT | $138,470 | $133,645 | 3,750 | | NH | $137,550 | $132,050 | 1,770 | | NM | $137,520 | $149,135 | 1,770 | | MT | $137,210 | $144,973 | 1,260 | | RI | $135,970 | $132,939 | 1,180 | | DC | $135,880 | $123,639 | 680 | | HI | $135,570 | $123,300 | 550 | 37 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 52 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/nurse-practitioner/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/nurse-practitioner. ## Outlook BLS projects employment to move from 320,400 in the 2024–2034 base year to 448,800 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 128,400 jobs, or +40.1%. Much faster than average: 40.1% against 3.1% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 29,500 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2024–2034. ## How to get in - **Typical entry education:** Master's 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:** None. ### Education people in this job actually hold O\*NET surveys incumbents, so this distribution describes who is in the job today and can differ from the BLS entry requirement above. | Education level | Share of workers | | --- | --- | | Master's Degree | 65.2% | | Doctoral Degree | 26.1% | | Bachelor's Degree | 4.4% | | Post-Doctoral Training | 4.4% | ## What the work involves - Maintain complete and detailed records of patients' health care plans and prognoses. - Develop treatment plans, based on scientific rationale, standards of care, and professional practice guidelines. - Provide patients with information needed to promote health, reduce risk factors, or prevent disease or disability. - Analyze and interpret patients' histories, symptoms, physical findings, or diagnostic information to develop appropriate diagnoses. - Diagnose or treat complex, unstable, comorbid, episodic, or emergency conditions in collaboration with other health care providers as necessary. - Prescribe medication dosages, routes, and frequencies, based on such patient characteristics as age and gender. - Diagnose or treat chronic health care problems, such as high blood pressure and diabetes. - Prescribe medications based on efficacy, safety, and cost as legally authorized. ## Skills and knowledge ### Essential skills - Reading Comprehension — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale - Active Listening — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale - Critical Thinking — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale - Writing — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale - Speaking — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale - Active Learning — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale - Monitoring — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale - Science — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale ### Transferable skills These are the skills that carry into other occupations, and they drive the related-occupation and career-change rankings on this site. - Complex Problem Solving — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale - Social Perceptiveness — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale - Judgment and Decision Making — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale - Service Orientation — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale - Coordination — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale - Time Management — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale - Persuasion — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale - Instructing — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale ### Knowledge areas - Medicine and Dentistry — importance 4.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale - English Language — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale - Biology — importance 4.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale - Psychology — importance 4.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale - Customer and Personal Service — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale - Therapy and Counseling — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale ### Abilities - Written Comprehension — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale - Problem Sensitivity — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale - Inductive Reasoning — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale - Oral Expression — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale - Written Expression — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale - Deductive Reasoning — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale ## 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), Social (S), Conventional (C). | Interest area | Score (1–7) | | --- | --- | | I — Investigative | 5.54 | | S — Social | 5.52 | | C — Conventional | 4.06 | | R — Realistic | 3.56 | | E — Enterprising | 2.07 | | A — Artistic | 1.38 | ### 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) | | --- | --- | | ISFJ | 65.2 | | ISTJ | 61.1 | | ISFP | 55.8 | | ESTJ | 54.2 | | ISTP | 54.0 | Best-fitting types: ISFJ, ISTJ. ## Related occupations O\*NET's primary related occupations, in its own ranked order. - [Registered Nurse](https://nuecareer.com/careers/registered-nurse) — median $97,550 - [Advanced Practice Psychiatric Nurse](https://nuecareer.com/careers/advanced-practice-psychiatric-nurse) — median $97,550 - [Clinical Nurse Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/clinical-nurse-specialist) — median $97,550 - [Family Medicine Physician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/family-medicine-physician) — median $244,180 - [Acute Care Nurse](https://nuecareer.com/careers/acute-care-nurse) — median $97,550 - [Emergency Medicine Physician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/emergency-medicine-physician) — median $335,550 - [Nurse Midwife](https://nuecareer.com/careers/nurse-midwife) — median $134,040 - [Critical Care Nurse](https://nuecareer.com/careers/critical-care-nurse) — median $97,550 - [General Internal Medicine Physician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/general-internal-medicine-physician) — median $256,560 - [Physician Assistant](https://nuecareer.com/careers/physician-assistant) — median $135,880 ### Nurse Practitioner compared with - [NP vs PA](https://nuecareer.com/careers/np-vs-pa) — side by side on BLS wage percentiles, projected growth, openings and entry requirements - [NP vs RN](https://nuecareer.com/careers/np-vs-rn) — side by side on BLS wage percentiles, projected growth, openings and entry requirements - [NP vs CRNA](https://nuecareer.com/careers/np-vs-crna) — side by side on BLS wage percentiles, projected growth, openings and entry requirements ## Sources - **O\*NET** — O\*NET 30.3 Database, May 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, 2024–2034. https://www.bls.gov/emp/ - **BLS OOH** — BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2024–2034 edition. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/ - **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 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 JSON representation of this page: https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/nurse-practitioner