Pediatric Nurse Salary Guide: Find Out How Much Pediatric Nurses Make and Other Key Information About the Role and Pay
Pediatric nurses use their knowledge and expertise to care for children, from birth, up until their teenage years. Their responsibilities include documenting the patient’s progress and assisting the doctors with tasks such as taking patient histories, checking vital signs or administering vaccines.
They have to be prepared to deal with any type of situation, like comforting a scared child or finding out relevant information from children who don’t know how to describe their symptoms.
Because they work with children of all ages, pediatric nurses need to have a certain set of personal qualities and skills that make them suitable to tend to the unique needs of children. A pediatric nurse should be respectful, communicative, intuitive, sensitive and most important of all, empathetic.
How to Become a Pediatric Nurse
If working with children and families appeals to you, pediatric nursing can offer a specialized career path across hospitals, outpatient clinics, schools, community settings, and other healthcare environments. Before exploring how to enter the specialty, it helps to understand both the earning potential and the current state of the pediatric nursing workforce.
First, you must become a certified RN, which means earning either an Associate’s Degree in Nursing (ADN) or a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) and then passing the Nursing Licensure Examination (NCLEX). Afterward, you can get employed as a pediatric nurse.
If you want to complete your education without affecting your existing personal or professional commitments, you can enroll in the BSN Program at Nightingale College, a blended distance learning option that combines online instruction with in-person practical preparation completed in one of the SOFE Areas throughout the country, in order to prepare you for excellence in the field. By enrolling in the BSN Program, you can graduate and seek licensure in just 3 years.
Find out more about the BSN Program at Nightingale College.
When you gain some experience in the field, you can further your education and become certified in pediatrics by getting an accreditation from the Pediatric Nursing Certification Board.
Salary is an important part of any job, even in personally fulfilling professions like pediatric nursing.
Below, we break down the latest pediatric nurse salary estimates nationally and by state, explain why official BLS data cannot isolate this specialty, and look at what recent workforce research says about pediatric nurses in the US.
How Much Do Pediatric Nurses Make in 2026?
The estimated pediatric nurse salary in the United States is $85,500 per year, or approximately $41.11 per hour.
Unlike some nursing roles, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) does not report pediatric Registered Nurses as a separate occupation. Instead, the BLS includes pediatric registered nurses in the broader Registered Nurses occupational category. As a result, BLS data cannot provide a pediatric-specific national or state salary.
To provide a more targeted estimate, we compared current pediatric nursing salary data from Indeed, ZipRecruiter, and Salary.com. Because the estimates differ substantially between sources, we used the median of the three national annual salary estimates rather than their average. This limits the influence of particularly high or low estimates from any one salary platform.
| Source | Pediatric nursing category | National estimate used |
|---|---|---|
| Indeed | Registered Nurse – Pediatrics | $79,784/year |
| ZipRecruiter | Pediatric Registered Nurse | $109,492/year |
| Salary.com | Pediatric Nurse | $85,500/year |
| Estimated Pediatric Nurse Salary | Median of source estimates | $85,500/year |
Based on this estimate, pediatric nurses earn approximately $7,125 per month, $1,644 per week, or $41.11 per hour.
How Does This Estimate Compare With Other Nursing Salary Data?
Although BLS does not report pediatric nursing separately, more recent nursing workforce research provides a useful benchmark.
The 2024 National Nursing Workforce Survey reported a median annual salary of $80,000 for Registered Nurses whose primary specialty was Pediatrics. The estimate was based on 3,731 pediatric RNs and reflects earnings from nurses' primary nursing positions, including overtime and bonuses but excluding sign-on bonuses.
| Salary Benchmark | Annual Salary |
| Estimated Pediatric Nurse Salary, 2026 | $85,500 |
| 2024 National Nursing Workforce Survey (Pediatric RNs) | $80,000 |
| BLS median (All Registered Nurses, May 2025) | $97,550 |
Actual earnings can differ considerably based on location, employer, experience, education, certifications, and work setting.
Estimated Pediatric Nurse Salary by State
Below are pediatric nurse salaries for each state, estimated using the methodology described above.
| State or District | Estimated Annual Pediatric Nurse Salary | Estimated Hourly Wage |
|---|---|---|
| Alabama | $78,500 | $37.74 |
| Alaska | $95,118 | $45.73 |
| Arizona | $101,941 | $49.01 |
| Arkansas | $77,200 | $37.12 |
| California | $94,300 | $45.34 |
| Colorado | $87,589 | $42.11 |
| Connecticut | $101,005 | $48.56 |
| Delaware | $106,018 | $50.97 |
| District of Columbia | $108,784 | $52.30 |
| Florida | $80,900 | $38.89 |
| Georgia | $92,453 | $44.45 |
| Hawaii | $102,648 | $49.35 |
| Idaho | $79,800 | $38.37 |
| Illinois | $87,100 | $41.88 |
| Indiana | $82,000 | $39.42 |
| Iowa† | $92,321 | $44.39 |
| Kansas | $81,400 | $39.13 |
| Kentucky† | $87,748 | $42.19 |
| Louisiana | $81,300 | $39.09 |
| Maine† | $94,655 | $45.51 |
| Maryland | $88,100 | $42.36 |
| Massachusetts | $101,920 | $49.00 |
| Michigan | $84,200 | $40.48 |
| Minnesota | $87,400 | $42.02 |
| Mississippi | $76,200 | $36.63 |
| Missouri | $81,200 | $39.04 |
| Montana | $89,544 | $43.05 |
| Nebraska | $80,500 | $38.70 |
| Nevada | $84,600 | $40.67 |
| New Hampshire† | $96,441 | $46.37 |
| New Jersey | $92,600 | $44.52 |
| New Mexico† | $92,653 | $44.54 |
| New York | $103,584 | $49.80 |
| North Carolina | $81,200 | $39.04 |
| North Dakota | $87,318 | $41.98 |
| Ohio | $83,200 | $40.00 |
| Oklahoma | $98,509 | $47.36 |
| Oregon | $115,764 | $55.66 |
| Pennsylvania | $85,100 | $40.91 |
| Rhode Island | $99,008 | $47.60 |
| South Carolina | $80,100 | $38.51 |
| South Dakota† | $93,596 | $45.00 |
| Tennessee | $79,900 | $38.41 |
| Texas | $83,400 | $40.10 |
| Utah | $81,800 | $39.33 |
| Vermont | $96,886 | $46.58 |
| Virginia | $86,100 | $41.39 |
| Washington | $92,700 | $44.57 |
| West Virginia | $84,765 | $40.75 |
| Wisconsin | $84,100 | $40.43 |
| Wyoming | $88,878 | $42.73 |
Want to know more about registered nurse salaries in the United States? Read our study on Nurse Salary by State report to see where RNs earn higher wages in the US.
What Does the Pediatric Nursing Workforce Look Like?
Pediatric nursing is a substantial and highly specialized part of the nursing workforce. The Pediatric Nursing Certification Board's workforce report profiled more than 53,000 PNCB-certified pediatric nursing professionals, including Registered Nurses and Advanced Practice Registered Nurses who care for children, adolescents, and young adults.
Work Settings
Pediatric nurses also work in a much wider range of environments than children's hospitals alone. Among Certified Pediatric Nurses included in the PNCB report, the most common settings were freestanding children's hospitals and children's hospitals within major medical centers, followed by community hospitals, outpatient specialty care, outpatient primary care, school-based health, home health, urgent care, and other settings.
Salary Variations
This variety is one reason no single pediatric nurse paycheck applies to everyone. Even among Registered Nurses generally, BLS data show meaningful salary differences by work setting: the May 2025 median was $100,220 for RNs working in hospitals, compared with $91,230 in ambulatory healthcare services and $78,620 in educational services. These are not pediatric-specific wages, but they illustrate how much the type of employer can affect your earning potential.
Workforce Considerations
Compensation is more than an individual career consideration in pediatric nursing—it is also emerging as a workforce concern. A 2025 study published in the Journal of Pediatric Nursing surveyed 6,590 U.S.-based pediatric nurses, 60.9% of whom worked in direct care. Respondents identified staffing ratios, lower pay than other nursing specialties, and student preparedness for practice as their top three post-pandemic concerns.
Read more about the current US nursing shortage.
The same study points to broader retention challenges. 39.5% of respondents reported experiencing burnout often or daily, while 30.2% reported compassion fatigue at the same frequency. In addition, 13.1% said they intended to leave the profession within five years, while another 17.8% were unsure whether they would remain. These findings suggest that when evaluating pediatric nursing as a career, salary should be considered alongside staffing, workload, workplace support, and long-term career sustainability.
However, as with any other nursing career, the most important consideration is your passion for and commitment to patients and the care you provide. If you consider that pediatric nursing is the path for you, the first step you have to take is receiving the right education.
If you want to take this first step without considerably affecting your current lifestyle and existing commitments, consider enrolling in the Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) Program at Nightingale College, a learning option designed to enable you to receive the necessary education and preparation without the added requirements of campus life.
Find out more about the BSN Program and take the first step toward your dream career.