Nurse Practitioners
Health ScienceO*NET 29-1171.00United States
Diagnose and treat acute, episodic, or chronic illness, independently or as part of a healthcare team. May focus on health promotion and disease prevention.
- Median annual earnings
- $131,535
- Projected change
- +39.1%
- Typical education
- Master's or Professional degree
- Employment
- 337.11K jobs
50th percentile, United States
2025 to 2035
65.2% of the workforce
Growing to 468.78K by 2035
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These courses and certificates are connected through catalog career relationships and Lightcast skill tags.
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The work
What nurse practitioners do
Tasks reported for this occupation, ordered by how often they come up in the role.
- Maintain complete and detailed records of patients' health care plans and prognoses.
- Develop treatment plans, based on scientific rationale, standards of care, and professional practice guidelines.
- Analyze and interpret patients' histories, symptoms, physical findings, or diagnostic information to develop appropriate diagnoses.
- Provide patients with information needed to promote health, reduce risk factors, or prevent disease or disability.
- Diagnose or treat complex, unstable, comorbid, episodic, or emergency conditions in collaboration with other health care providers as necessary.
- Prescribe medication dosages, routes, and frequencies, based on such patient characteristics as age and gender.
- Diagnose or treat chronic health care problems, such as high blood pressure and diabetes.
- Prescribe medications based on efficacy, safety, and cost as legally authorized.
- Diagnose or treat acute health care problems, such as illnesses, infections, or injuries.
- Detect and respond to adverse drug reactions, with special attention to vulnerable populations such as infants, children, pregnant and lactating women, or older adults.
- Recommend diagnostic or therapeutic interventions with attention to safety, cost, invasiveness, simplicity, acceptability, adherence, and efficacy.
- Educate patients about self-management of acute or chronic illnesses, tailoring instructions to patients' individual circumstances.
- Counsel patients about drug regimens and possible side effects or interactions with other substances, such as food supplements, over-the-counter (OTC) medications, or herbal remedies.
- Order, perform, or interpret the results of diagnostic tests, such as complete blood counts (CBCs), electrocardiograms (EKGs), and radiographs (x-rays).
- Maintain current knowledge of state legal regulations for nurse practitioner practice, including reimbursement of services.
- Treat or refer patients for primary care conditions, such as headaches, hypertension, urinary tract infections, upper respiratory infections, and dermatological conditions.
- Consult with, or refer patients to, appropriate specialists when conditions exceed the scope of practice or expertise.
- Recommend interventions to modify behavior associated with health risks.
- Read current literature, talk with colleagues, or participate in professional organizations or conferences to keep abreast of developments in nursing.
- Schedule follow-up visits to monitor patients or evaluate health or illness care.
- Perform routine or annual physical examinations.
- Maintain departmental policies and procedures in areas such as safety and infection control.
- Advocate for accessible health care that minimizes environmental health risks.
- Perform primary care procedures such as suturing, splinting, administering immunizations, taking cultures, and debriding wounds.
- Provide patients or caregivers with assistance in locating health care resources.
- Keep abreast of regulatory processes and payer systems, such as Medicare, Medicaid, managed care, and private sources.
- Supervise or coordinate patient care or support staff activities.
Pay and outlook
What the job pays and where it is heading
Annual earnings range
Reported earnings by percentile, United States
- 10th percentile
- $99,629
- 25th percentile
- $116,560
- 50th percentile
- $131,535
- 75th percentile
- $156,888
- 90th percentile
- $177,665
The gold marker shows the median. Half earn more than $131,535 and half earn less.
Employment outlook
2025 to 2035 projection
+39.1%much faster than average
2025337,109 jobs
2035 projected468,781 jobs
131,672 more positions over the decade, before replacement hiring.
Preparation
Education levels
What people currently working in the career hold. These are not entry requirements.
- Master's or Professional degree
- 65.2%
- Doctoral degree or more
- 30.4%
- Bachelor's degree
- 4.4%
Skills
Skills employers ask for
Technical skills appearing most often in job postings for this occupation.
How the work gets done
Core competencies
Broad capabilities associated with strong performance in this occupation.
- Reading Comprehension
- Understanding written sentences and paragraphs in work-related documents.
- Active Listening
- Giving full attention to what other people are saying, taking time to understand the points being made, asking questions as appropriate, and not interrupting at inappropriate times.
- Complex Problem Solving
- Identifying complex problems and reviewing related information to develop and evaluate options and implement solutions.
- Critical Thinking
- Using logic and reasoning to identify the strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions, conclusions, or approaches to problems.
- Social Perceptiveness
- Being aware of others' reactions and understanding why they react as they do.
- Monitoring
- Monitoring/Assessing performance of yourself, other individuals, or organizations to make improvements or take corrective action.
- Active Learning
- Understanding the implications of new information for both current and future problem-solving and decision-making.
- Judgment and Decision Making
- Considering the relative costs and benefits of potential actions to choose the most appropriate one.
- Writing
- Communicating effectively in writing as appropriate for the needs of the audience.
- Speaking
- Talking to others to convey information effectively.
- Service Orientation
- Actively looking for ways to help people.
- Science
- Using scientific rules and methods to solve problems.
- Coordination
- Adjusting actions in relation to others' actions.
- Learning Strategies
- Selecting and using training/instructional methods and procedures appropriate for the situation when learning or teaching new things.
- Time Management
- Managing one's own time and the time of others.
- Persuasion
- Persuading others to change their minds or behavior.
- Instructing
- Teaching others how to do something.
- Systems Evaluation
- Identifying measures or indicators of system performance and the actions needed to improve or correct performance, relative to the goals of the system.
- Operations Analysis
- Analyzing needs and product requirements to create a design.
- Systems Analysis
- Determining how a system should work and how changes in conditions, operations, and the environment will affect outcomes.
In the market
Job titles and employers
Recent job postings in United StatesCommon job titles
- 01Nurse Practitioners33,251 postings
- 02Nurse Practitioners/Physician Assistants17,623 postings
- 03Psychiatric Nurse Practitioners9,072 postings
- 04Advanced Practice Providers7,974 postings
- 05Family Nurse Practitioners6,703 postings
- 06Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioners6,536 postings
- 07Family Practice/Primary Care Nurse Practitioners4,765 postings
- 08Primary Care Nurse Practitioners/Physician Assistants3,440 postings
- 09Primary Care Nurse Practitioners3,136 postings
- 10Urgent Care Nurse Practitioners/Physician Assistants3,094 postings
- 11Neonatal Nurse Practitioners2,928 postings
- 12Family Practice Nurse Practitioners/Physician Assistants2,545 postings
- 13General Surgery Nurse Practitioners2,374 postings
- 14Urgent Care Nurse Practitioners2,241 postings
- 15Internal Medicine Nurse Practitioners2,215 postings
- 16Family Medicine Nurse Practitioners/Physician Assistants1,919 postings
- 17Nurse Practitioners/Hospitalists1,759 postings
- 18Palliative Care Nurse Practitioners1,424 postings
- 19Wound Care Nurse Practitioners1,316 postings
- 20Neurology Nurse Practitioners1,154 postings
Top employers
- 01Practicematch4,079 postings
- 02Headway3,069 postings
- 03CompHealth2,735 postings
- 04GO Staffing2,613 postings
- 05LifeStance Health2,438 postings
- 06Matrix Medical Network2,337 postings
- 07CVS Health2,189 postings
- 08UnitedHealth Group1,718 postings
- 09Fast Pace Health1,644 postings
- 10Weatherby Healthcare1,500 postings
- 11Optum1,049 postings
- 12Amergis990 postings
- 13Sumo Staffing963 postings
- 14Hartford HealthCare956 postings
- 15AMN Healthcare920 postings
- 16Provider Healthcare871 postings
- 17Jt Medstaff845 postings
- 18K&A Recruiting839 postings
- 19CHRISTUS Health751 postings
- 20Signify Health716 postings
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