Salaries
Nurse Manager Salary
Reviewed
On this page
Key Takeaways
- 1
$133,580 in hospitals. The median for medical and health services managers employed in hospitals, $10,000 above the $123,860 the same occupation reports across every industry.
- 2
There is no nurse manager wage series. Nurse managers are counted among medical and health services managers, an occupation of which the overwhelming majority hold no nursing credential. The hospital figure is used because that is where nurse managers work, and it still covers every kind of manager a hospital employs rather than nursing ones alone.
- 3
Setting moves it by $33,000. Within medical and health services managers, hospitals report $133,580 and nursing and residential care facilities report $100,520.
- 4
No figure here measures a degree. BLS classifies by occupation, not by credential: there is no DNP wage series, and every figure here covers everyone in the occupation regardless of which degree they hold.
What Does A Nurse Manager Earn?
Nurse managers are counted among medical and health services managers, an occupation of which the overwhelming majority hold no nursing credential. The hospital figure is used because that is where nurse managers work, and it still covers every kind of manager a hospital employs rather than nursing ones alone.
Nurse managers are counted among medical and health services managers, which is the same occupation the chief nursing officer page uses and for the same reason: the wage survey has no nursing management row.
Hospitals are where nurse managers work, so this page anchors to the hospital figure rather than the all-industry one, and it runs above it. The chief nursing officer page uses the upper quartile of the same occupation instead, because an executive post sits at a different point in a distribution that also contains practice managers and clinic administrators.
What That Number Counts, And What It Does Not
BLS classifies by occupation, not by credential: there is no DNP wage series, and every figure here covers everyone in the occupation regardless of which degree they hold.
Setting is the thing the survey does measure well, and for nurse managers it is genuinely informative, because a hospital manager and a nursing-home administrator are paid very differently and both are in this table. What it cannot show is the level, and level is what separates a unit manager from the executive above them. Across medical and health services managers, hospitals report $133,580 and nursing and residential care facilities report $100,520, a spread of $33,000 inside one occupation.
How Far Nurse Manager Pay Actually Spreads
The distribution below is medical and health services managers (11-9111), the occupation nurse managers are counted inside. There is no narrower published series to draw.
Relative to where its middle sits, nothing this site publishes spreads further than this occupation, and almost none of that spread is nursing. Medical and health services managers runs from a small clinic administrator to a hospital chief executive, which is why the distance between the tenth and the ninetieth percentile is so large. A first-line nurse manager sits low in that range rather than in the middle of it.
That is the most useful correction to make before reading any figure on this page. The occupation median is pulled upward by executives, so treating it as the going rate for running a unit will leave you disappointed by every offer you receive. The chief nursing officer page points at the upper part of the same distribution for exactly this reason.
Annual wages for medical and health services managers (11-9111) across every industry, May 2025. The filled band is the middle half of the occupation. The taller rule is the median. 597,080 people are counted in it.
- 10th
- $73,390
- 25th
- $94,700
- Median
- $123,860
- 75th
- $166,100
- 90th
- $224,340
The distance from the tenth percentile to the ninetieth is $151,000, which against a median of $123,860 makes it the widest of the six nursing occupations BLS publishes. A first-line nurse manager salary sits low in this band rather than in the middle of it. The upper reaches belong to executives in the same occupation code, so treating the median as the going rate for running a unit is the single most common way people end up disappointed by a promotion.
Nurse Manager Pay By Setting
Every figure below is a median for medical and health services managers (11-9111), not for nurse managers within it. Every industry BLS publishes for this occupation, best paid first. Hospitals are marked because that is where nurse managers work, and it is worth remembering while reading it that the row contains every kind of hospital manager, most of whom never held a nursing license.
Nurse Manager Pay By State
Geography moves this figure further than any credential does. New York reports $164,120 for medical and health services managers and Arkansas reports $94,340, a gap of $70,000 across 51 jurisdictions.
This chart moves for a reason that is not about nursing at all. It ranks states by what they pay healthcare managers of every kind, so a nurse manager reading it is looking at a market shaped mostly by administrators who never worked a ward. The order is roughly the order of the expensive states, with the dense north-eastern ones at the top.
Within a state, the variable that matters more is the size of the system rather than the city you are in. A large multi-hospital group pays above an independent community hospital for the same span of control, and it also has more rungs above the post, which is the part worth caring about if you intend to keep climbing.
Before pricing a move, price the promotion itself. The comparison that decides more nurse manager careers than geography ever does is a nurse manager salary against your own current earnings including overtime and differentials, and in a high-overtime unit that number can be higher than the salary on offer.
How Nurse Manager Pay Compares With The Other Nursing Occupations
Of the six nursing-relevant occupations BLS publishes a wage for, medical and health services managers rank fourth by median. Nurse practitioners sit immediately above at $132,300. Registered nurses sit immediately below at $97,550.
Your bar is the managers’ one, and it is the same bar the chief nursing officer page uses. Two very different jobs read off one occupation, which is possible only because the survey has no nursing management row at all. What separates those two pages is which part of the distribution each one points at, and both of them say so.
The comparison that decides most careers, though, is with the registered nurse bar below. Moving from a senior clinical post into a first management post is not reliably a raise, and it is the one transition on this site where the published medians can mislead you in the direction that costs money.
Two very different jobs read off the bar you are looking at, because this site anchors both the nurse manager page and the chief nursing officer page to it. What separates them is which part of the distribution each one points at, and a first management post points at the lower part.
What Actually Moves A Nurse Manager's Pay
Unit size and acuity move this most. Running a thirty-bed medical ward and running a cardiac intensive care unit are paid differently, and span of control, how many people report to you, is usually the explicit driver in a banded system.
System size matters more than region. Large multi-hospital systems pay above independent community hospitals at the same level of responsibility, and they also have more rungs above the post.
Overtime is the thing to model before accepting a promotion. Moving from an hourly clinical post to a salaried management one can reduce total earnings even when base pay rises, and in high-overtime units it frequently does.
How To Raise A Nurse Manager's Salary
Model the overtime before you accept the promotion. This is the concrete thing to do and almost nobody does it. Moving from an hourly clinical post to a salaried management one removes overtime, differentials and often weekend premiums, and in a high-overtime unit that can outweigh the increase in base pay for years. Work out your actual last-twelve-months earnings rather than your base, and compare against that.
Take the harder unit. Span of control and acuity are usually the explicit drivers in a banded management system, so running a cardiac intensive care unit is banded above running a thirty-bed medical ward, and the gap is written into the scale rather than negotiated. If you are choosing between two first management posts, the bigger and sicker one pays better and prepares you faster.
Get the management credential before you need it rather than after. Nurse manager certification sits at bachelor’s level and is cheap relative to what it unlocks, and in systems that band by qualification it moves you a step without a job change. It also makes the case for the next post easier to write.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does a nurse manager make?
There is no nurse manager wage series. Nurse managers are counted among medical and health services managers, and hospital managers in that occupation report a median above the all-industry figure. That occupation is mostly not nurses, so treat the number as the neighborhood the post sits in rather than a nursing salary.
Why is there no nurse manager salary in the federal data?
Because BLS classifies by occupation and nursing management is not one of its occupations. Nurse managers fall inside medical and health services managers, alongside practice managers, clinic administrators and health insurance managers, the overwhelming majority of whom hold no nursing credential at all.
Do nurse managers make more than nurse practitioners?
Usually not, and this surprises people. Nurse practitioners have their own wage series and it sits above the hospital management median. Moving into management is a change of career direction rather than a step up in pay, and anyone choosing between the two routes should look at both figures first.
Does a master’s or DNP raise nurse manager pay?
Not reliably in the post itself, which asks for a bachelor’s. Graduate education matters for reaching the director and executive posts above it, where the pay is materially different. The return comes from the promotion rather than from a premium on the job you already hold.
Sources
- 1 May 2025, Medical and Health Services Managers (11-9111) By Industry Every figure in the table on this page, including the $133,580 anchor for medical and health services managers employed in hospitals. Annual median wage (OEWS datatype 13). Retrieved 2026-09-01.
- 2 AONL, CNML Frequently Asked Questions What the profession requires to enter or certify.
- 3 BLS OEWS, May 2025, Registered nurses (29-1141) Median $97,550. The comparison most readers are making.
- 4 BLS OEWS, May 2025, Nurse practitioners (29-1171) Median $132,300. The other route a doctorate opens.
- 5 BLS Employment Projections, 2025-35 Cited for projections only, and only for nurse anesthetists, nurse midwives and nurse practitioners together. Its wage tab is a release behind OEWS.
Every federal figure on this site is read from the administering agency’s own page, never from a secondary aggregator, and the reading date is recorded beside it.