Medical career pay: why ranked ‘highest paying’ lists mislead

Most “highest paying medical jobs” lists rank titles by salary. That format misleads, because it implies the top entry is the one to chase. What actually decides your pay is which broad group the job falls in and how long the credential takes.

Three federal medians sketch the whole picture. Healthcare support occupations, $37,180. All occupations across the economy, $49,500. Healthcare practitioner and technical occupations, $83,090. Those are May 2024 figures. BLS has since posted May 2025 wages (the all-occupations median moved to $50,980), so read everything here as a dated snapshot. I have not adjusted anything to 2026, because no federal source publishes that adjustment.

The gap is what matters

Healthcare support pays well below the economy-wide median. Healthcare practitioners sit well above it. Both are healthcare, both are in demand, and the distance between them is roughly $46,000 a year.

What separates them is licensure and the length of training, not effort or importance. Understand that before you choose a program. A list that ranks jobs by pay without saying which group each one belongs to hides it completely.

Projected growth runs the other way, and that is not a contradiction. BLS projects healthcare support occupations to grow 12.4 percent between 2024 and 2034 and healthcare practitioner and technical occupations 7.2 percent, against 3 percent for all occupations. The lower-paid group is growing faster in percentage terms, and it still pays less.

The May 2024 medians side by side

Here are the group medians next to two of the best-known practitioner roles. Every figure is from the BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, May 2024.

Why “fastest growing” is the wrong list to plan from

Growth-rate tables get shared the most, and they mislead in a specific way. A percentage is calculated against the size of the occupation today, so a small occupation growing quickly produces a dramatic number and very few actual jobs, while a large occupation growing modestly produces a dull number and many.

The measure that answers the question you are actually asking is projected openings, which BLS builds from two components: growth, meaning new positions, plus replacement needs, meaning people leaving the occupation permanently. In most established occupations replacements are the larger share, which is why a field can be worth entering with a low growth rate.

Registered nursing is the clearest example. Projected growth is 5 percent from 2024 to 2034, unremarkable next to the healthcare support figure, on an occupation with a $93,600 median and a very large existing workforce. The openings come mostly from replacement.

How to use the data on your own decision

1. Identify which group the role is in. Support or practitioner? That one fact predicts pay better than the job title does.
2. Read the median against $49,500, the all-occupations figure, rather than against other healthcare roles.
3. Look at projected openings, not the growth percentage.
4. Price the credential in time as well as money, including any prerequisites, because the training length is what the wage gap is paying for.
5. Check the industry breakdown so the setting matches what you want, which is the trap covered in our note on hospital jobs with no experience.

I am not a career counselor, and this is not career advice. It is what the federal data says, which is narrower. The nursing routes specifically are covered in our note on the nursing career path.

Questions about medical pay data

Which medical jobs pay over $80,000?

As a group, healthcare practitioner and technical occupations had a May 2024 median of $83,090, so the median role in that group clears it. Registered nurses were at $93,600 and the nurse anesthetist, nurse midwife and nurse practitioner group at $132,050. Healthcare support occupations, at $37,180, are a different picture entirely.

Is healthcare support a bad choice because it pays less?

It pays less and it is projected to grow faster, at 12.4 percent against 7.2 percent for practitioners and 3 percent for all occupations. Shorter training means entering the workforce sooner and at lower cost. Whether that trade suits you depends on your circumstances, and only you can weigh that.

Why does nursing show only 5 percent growth if there is a shortage?

Because growth counts net new positions, not total hiring. Openings also come from replacement needs as people leave the occupation, and in a workforce as large as registered nursing that component is substantial. A modest growth rate on a very large occupation still produces a lot of openings.

Are these 2026 wages?

No. Every figure here is a May 2024 median, and the projections run 2024 to 2034. BLS has since released May 2025 wages, which are higher. I do not inflate anything to 2026, because no federal source publishes that adjustment, and a made-up 2026 number is worse than a correctly dated one.

Written by

Keith Guirao

Founder & Editor, ConsumersWeek

18+ years in consumer marketing and lead generation across insurance, personal finance, and home services. ConsumersWeek explains how these products are priced and sold so you can evaluate them with the same information the industry has.

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