Certified Nurse-Midwife: Guides people through pregnancy, delivers babies, and provides gynecological care. Typical pay $129k.
Chief Nursing Officer: Leads all the nurses at a hospital or health system, setting policy, budgets, and patient-care standards. Typical pay $200k.
Clinical Nurse Specialist: An expert nurse who improves care across an entire unit, training staff and solving tough patient problems. Typical pay $125k.
Neonatal Nurse Practitioner: Advanced practice nurse who diagnoses and treats premature and sick newborns. Typical pay $140k.
Nurse Scientist: Nurse with a research doctorate who studies how to improve patient care. Typical pay $120k.
Mid pay: solid pay, degree or apprenticeship
Registered Nurse: Provides and coordinates patient care, gives medications, and is the person patients see most in a hospital. Typical pay $94k.
Travel Nurse: An RN who takes short contracts (often 13 weeks) at hospitals around the country that need extra staff. Typical pay $105k.
Critical Care (ICU) Nurse: Cares for the sickest patients in the hospital, often on ventilators and multiple IV drips. Typical pay $98k.
Forensic Nurse Examiner: Cares for victims of violence and collects medical evidence that may be used in court. Typical pay $88k.
Legal Nurse Consultant: Uses nursing knowledge to help lawyers understand medical records in malpractice and injury cases. Typical pay $90k.
School Nurse: Keeps students healthy at school, from asthma attacks to concussions to daily medications. Typical pay $66k.
Nurse Educator: Teaches the next generation of nurses in colleges or trains staff nurses inside hospitals. Typical pay $82k.
Lactation Consultant: Helps new parents and babies learn to breastfeed and solves feeding problems. Typical pay $75k.
Hospice Nurse: Cares for people at the end of life, mostly in their own homes, keeping them comfortable. Typical pay $88k.
Licensed Practical Nurse: Provides basic nursing care like vitals, wound care, and medications under RN or doctor supervision. Typical pay $62k.
Oncology Nurse: Cares for people with cancer, including giving chemotherapy and immunotherapy. Typical pay $94k.
Labor & Delivery Nurse: Supports people through labor and birth and watches over mom and baby. Typical pay $95k.
Pediatric Nurse: Cares for infants, children, and teens in hospitals and clinics. Typical pay $88k.
Perianesthesia (PACU) Nurse: Watches patients as they wake up from anesthesia after surgery. Typical pay $96k.
Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse: Registered nurse who cares for patients with mental illness and substance use disorders. Typical pay $90k.
Public Health Nurse: Nurse who protects the health of whole communities through clinics, home visits, and outbreak response. Typical pay $78k.
Occupational Health Nurse: Keeps workers healthy and safe at factories, offices, and job sites. Typical pay $88k.
Nurse Case Manager: Coordinates the care of patients with complex needs so nothing falls through the cracks. Typical pay $90k.
Utilization Review Nurse: Reviews medical records to decide whether treatments and hospital stays meet insurance guidelines. Typical pay $88k.
Home Health Nurse: Visits patients at home to provide nursing care after surgery or for chronic illness. Typical pay $86k.
Infusion Nurse: Expert in IV lines who gives infusions and places hard-to-start IVs. Typical pay $95k.
Correctional Nurse: Provides nursing care to people in jails and prisons. Typical pay $85k.
Faith Community Nurse: Nurse based at a church, synagogue or mosque who runs health checks, home visits and support for members and neighbors. Typical pay $58k.
Transplant Recipient Nurse Coordinator: Nurse who guides patients waiting for a new kidney, liver, heart or lung through testing, the waitlist, surgery and lifelong follow-up. Typical pay $100k.
Starter: fastest way in
Certified Nursing Assistant: Helps patients with daily needs like bathing, eating, and moving around. Typical pay $40k.
Home Health & Personal Care Aide: Helps older adults and people with disabilities live safely in their own homes. Typical pay $35k.
Patient Care Technician: A hospital-based aide who also draws blood, runs EKGs, and assists nurses with procedures. Typical pay $41k.
Birth Doula: Provides emotional and physical support (not medical care) to people during pregnancy, birth, and after. Typical pay $40k.
Certified Medication Aide: Trained aide who passes out routine medications in nursing homes and assisted living. Typical pay $41k.
Patient Safety Companion: Stays at the bedside of patients at risk of falling or hurting themselves. Typical pay $36k.
Camp Nurse: Nurse who lives at a summer camp and runs its health center: daily medicines, bee stings, homesickness and the occasional emergency. Typical pay $12k.
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.