Best Paying Jobs in Health Care (BLS Wage Data)

A nurse practitioner with a master's degree can clear a median $132,300 a year. A licensed veterinary technician, doing clinically demanding work of her own kind, tops out at a median $47,380. Both jobs sit under the same "health care jobs" umbrella — and that gap is exactly why most "best paying jobs in health care" lists are useless to anyone who isn't already in medical school. They either rank by physician specialty, which takes a decade-plus to reach, or they average everything into a meaningless blob that tells you nothing about what you could actually go train for this year.

So this list skips the surgeons and anesthesiologists — every other site already has that list, and the real number doesn't change your options without years more school. Below are seven health care roles ranked by real, current national median pay, most of them reachable with an associate's degree or less, using the latest U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) data.

A note on the salary numbers

These are national median annual wages for each specific occupation, pulled from BLS OEWS releases dated May 2025 (with one May 2024 figure noted where it's the most recent confirmed by BLS). Actual pay depends heavily on state, setting and experience — a sonographer in a rural clinic and one in a Boston hospital system are not earning the same number, and entry-level pay for every role here starts well below the median shown.

The best-paying jobs in health care

1. Nurse practitioner — $132,300

NPs diagnose, treat and prescribe much of what a primary care physician does, with a master's degree in advanced practice nursing instead of medical school behind them. The BLS projects 41% employment growth from 2025 to 2035 — by far the fastest on this list — as scope-of-practice laws keep expanding state by state and primary care shortages push more patients toward NP-led clinics. A growing share of that growth is remote: telehealth NP roles handling virtual primary care and chronic-disease management are a real, current path, and JobSnag's remote healthcare jobs page lists current openings.

2. Dental hygienist — $98,100

This is the single best pay-to-schooling ratio on this list: a typical two-year associate's degree program, a state licensing exam, and a median salary that beats general registered nursing. Hygienists clean teeth, take X-rays and screen for oral disease, usually working a predictable daytime schedule with no on-call rotation. The BLS projects 8% growth through 2035. JobSnag's dental and oral health jobs page has current hygienist openings.

3. Registered nurse — $97,550

RN is the broadest title on this list, covering everything from bedside ICU work to desk-based utilization review and case management — roles that use the same license without the floor shifts. If the clinical bedside grind isn't the plan long-term, JobSnag's deeper guide on non-clinical nursing career paths breaks down which of those desk-based tracks are genuinely remote and which ones just moved the stress indoors. Either way, the BLS projects a steady 6% growth through 2035, and JobSnag's nursing jobs page lists current RN openings across both bedside and remote roles.

4. Diagnostic medical sonographer — $89,340

Sonographers run the ultrasound exams that catch everything from a blocked artery to a fetal anomaly, and most programs take about two years. This is the quietest high earner on the list — rarely mentioned in generic "best jobs in health care" roundups, which tend to default to nursing and physician roles instead. BLS data (most recently confirmed for May 2024) projects 13% growth through 2034. Sonographer and other imaging-support roles often post under JobSnag's allied health and clinical support category.

5. Radiologic technologist — $80,110

Rad techs operate the X-ray and CT equipment that sonographers' ultrasound work doesn't cover, again on a roughly two-year associate's degree. The BLS projects 5% growth through 2035 — slower than sonography, but still faster than the average occupation — and demand holds steady because imaging is baked into nearly every diagnosis pathway in modern medicine.

6. Physical therapist assistant — $68,380

PTAs work under a licensed physical therapist's plan of care, guiding patients through the exercises and mobility work that actually make up most of a rehab visit. It's one of the fastest-growing jobs on this entire list — the BLS projects 23% growth from 2025 to 2035 — driven by an aging population that needs more physical rehab, not less. JobSnag's rehab therapy jobs page lists current PT, PTA and OT openings.

7. Veterinary technician — $47,380

This is the role that breaks the "more schooling, more pay" pattern the hardest. Vet techs run anesthesia, take X-rays, place IV catheters and monitor surgery recovery — clinically, a similar scope to a rad tech or sonographer — for less than half the pay. It isn't a secret inside the field. On Reddit's r/VetTech, one specialty neurology technician earning $32 an hour said they still felt underpaid given the training and responsibility the role demands, and the thread's replies describe a wide pay gap between corporate and private practices with no clear logic behind it. The honest reason, veterinary-industry groups note, is that pet care isn't reimbursed through insurance the way human medicine is, which caps what a clinic can charge and, in turn, what it can pay. BLS projects 9% growth through 2035 — real demand, just not real pay to match. JobSnag's veterinary and animal care jobs page lists current openings, including some clinics paying above this median.

Schooling vs. pay: the actual pattern

Line the list up and a pattern shows up that generic "best jobs in health care" roundups don't surface: five of these seven roles need two years of school or less, not four. Dental hygienist, sonographer, radiologic tech and PTA are all associate's-degree jobs paying $68,000 to $98,000 — in the same range as, or above, plenty of bachelor's-degree office jobs outside health care entirely. The outlier running the other direction is veterinary technician: same two-year credential, same clinical intensity, less than half the pay. Where you land on this list has less to do with how hard the work is than with how the specific field gets reimbursed.

Is health care still a good field to get into?

For most of the roles above, yes — the BLS projects faster-than-average growth across nearly every one of them, driven by an aging population and genuine labor shortages, not a hiring fad. The honest caveat is uneven: a two-year sonography or dental hygiene program can out-earn a four-year degree in plenty of other fields, while the same two years spent on a veterinary technician license tops out well below it. Check which specific role you're training for against real, current pay data before committing to the schooling — not the "health care pays well" generalization alone.

How to break in

If a four-year or longer commitment isn't in the plan, dental hygiene, sonography, radiologic technology and physical therapist assisting all run on two-year associate's programs with a licensing exam at the end, and all four land solidly inside this list's top half. If you already have a nursing license or are working toward one, the bedside RN path is only one branch of it — case management, utilization review and other non-clinical tracks use the same credential without the same floor-shift schedule. And if you're weighing veterinary work specifically, go in with the real pay number from this list, not the number a program's marketing page implies. You can browse current openings in any of these fields directly on JobSnag's remote healthcare, nursing and rehab therapy job pages.

Sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook and Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics — nurse practitioners (May 2025), dental hygienists (May 2025), registered nurses (May 2025), diagnostic medical sonographers (May 2024), radiologic technologists (May 2025), physical therapist assistants (May 2025), and veterinary technologists and technicians (May 2025). Veterinary technician pay sentiment via r/VetTech.