Most nursing pay advice is a number somebody wrote down once. Nobody checked it again.
This is the opposite of that: what the job board is holding this morning, pulled fresh, and next week it will say something else.
Nearly half of postings will not tell you what they pay
There are 37,712 nursing roles live. 20,601 of them will tell you what the job pays.
That gap is the first thing worth knowing. Nearly half the job board wants your application before it will discuss money, and that's a choice somebody made. Of everything live, 4,147 are travel contracts and 3,771 state outright that new graduates are welcome.
The width matters more than the middle
The median across every employment type is $96,533. That number is the least interesting thing on this page, because a quarter of postings sit below $80,000 and a quarter sit above $115,000, which means the middle describes almost nobody.
$35,000between the quartiles — the room you have in a negotiation
Carry the width. $35,000 separates the quartiles, and that's your room. An offer at the bottom of the band and an offer at the top are the same job, described the same way, $35,000 apart.
Hourly, the same job board reads $38 at the median, running $32 to $46 across the quartiles. Split by how you're hired, the medians run: travel $112,020, PRN $95,462, staff $92,500, agency $87,500. Travel's figure is annualized from a weekly rate at fifty-two weeks, which almost nobody works, so read it beside the staff number.
The bonus is smaller than the band
A sign-on bonus appears on 2,462 of the priced postings, about one in eight, and where it appears the median is $8,850.
Hold those two next to each other. The bonus arrives once, and it gets taxed. The quartile spread is $35,000 every single year, it compounds into every raise you're ever offered off that base, and nobody puts it in the ad.
Who this doesn't apply to
If you work nights, weekends or charge, none of it is in here. Shift differentials sit in a different field from the salary range, so every figure on this page is posted base, and nurses will tell you the differential is where the money turns up.
These are advertised ranges. A range is what an employer will say in public before it has met you, and what it will pay once it wants you is a different number.
Find your own band first
filter the job board to your specialty and your state before you look at any single offer. One number means nothing without the two either side of it.
Ask where the offer sits in it
bottom, middle or top. A recruiter who won't place it has answered you.
Ask what moves it
years, certification, shift, charge, weekend commitment. Get the list, then price each line.
Ask about the differential separately
it isn't in any figure on this page, and it's worth more than a lateral move.
Check the date at the bottom
if this page is more than a week old, so are its numbers.
Notes
- Nursing Mastery job board, read September 1, 2026; freshest listing August 31, 2026. Percentiles are midpoints of advertised salary ranges on live postings.
- Shift differentials live in a separate field and aren't included in any figure here.
What the board holds this morning
Live roles, what they state, and what they pay.
Live right now
The sign-on bonus is stated on one priced posting in eight, at a median of $8,850 once. The quartile spread is $35,000, every year. Only one of those is negotiable.
