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Where hospitals are hiring nurses right now (September 2026)


This page is built from the open postings on hospital and health-system career sites listed on Betterleap's job board, 207,368 open positions from 701 employers across all 50 states and D.C. as of September 26, 2026. It answers three questions job boards usually leave to guesswork: where the openings actually are, who is posting them, and what the postings themselves say about pay. It is regenerated monthly; the "as of" date is the truth about how fresh it is.

Open nursing and healthcare jobs by state

The fifteen states with the most open postings. "Posted-pay coverage" is the share of a state's postings that state a pay range with both ends, it is what makes the pay figures further down usable or not.

#StateOpen postingsEmployers postingShare of U.S. postingsPosted-pay coverage
1Florida13,022796.3%5.8%
2New York11,665805.6%26.4%
3Texas11,388875.5%11.3%
4California10,5221235.1%19.5%
5Illinois8,901744.3%24.6%
6Pennsylvania8,813644.2%2.7%
7North Carolina8,638584.2%3.5%
8Ohio8,368684%3.8%
9Massachusetts7,629503.7%35.5%
10Virginia7,530533.6%22.7%
11Missouri6,314613%7%
12Michigan6,296533%2.4%
13Minnesota5,551362.7%27%
14New Jersey5,099512.5%14.4%
15Wisconsin4,999532.4%2.9%

Every state links to its live registered-nurse listings; the full state-by-state index is on the job board.

Cities with the most open healthcare jobs

#CityOpen postingsof which RNEmployers
1New York, NY2,46133231
2Boston, MA1,82826714
3Philadelphia, PA1,65626524
4Houston, TX1,63138925
5Baltimore, MD1,47535411
6Providence, RI1,46642011
7New Orleans, LA1,44036211
8Rochester, MN1,2491725
9Jacksonville, FL1,19032622
10Charleston, SC1,1532417
11San Antonio, TX1,13121317
12Birmingham, AL1,08135214
13Miami, FL1,02521916
14Grand Rapids, MI9842789
15Rochester, NY9732111
16Chicago, IL96421128
17Louisville, KY94719614
18Cleveland, OH9223387
19Cincinnati, OH91821014
20Charlottesville, VA9161558
21Orlando, FL88322210
22Oklahoma City, OK88023918
23Pittsburgh, PA87722113
24Madison, WI87627313
25Springfield, MO87019711

Health systems posting the most jobs

Counted by open postings on the system's own career site, so a system that lists every unit and shift separately ranks higher than one that posts one evergreen requisition per role.

Which roles are being hired

Registered nurses are 33.6% of all open postings (49,073). The ten largest role groups:

What postings say about RN pay: where they say anything

Only 11.6% of open postings state a pay range with both ends. Where enough do, the table shows the median midpoint of the posted range for registered-nurse postings, converted to hourly (annual ÷ 2,080), with the interquartile range and the BLS May 2025 mean hourly wage for the same state beside it. We publish a state only when it has at least 100 such postings and the posted median sits within about a third of the BLS mean; otherwise the sample is too small or too skewed to print. Posted midpoints usually run below the BLS mean, which includes overtime and differentials that postings leave out.

StatePostings with a rangeMedian posted midpointMiddle half of postingsBLS mean (May 2025)Posted vs BLS
Washington105$59.00/hr$52.88–$71.50$58.43/hr+1%
Massachusetts465$58.50/hr$54.00–$74.00$56.71/hr+3.2%
Minnesota244$57.50/hr$50.50–$59.50$49.72/hr+15.6%
New York374$57.00/hr$46.61–$65.00$54.54/hr+4.5%
California348$50.00/hr$47.50–$59.00$72.25/hr-30.8%
New Jersey221$49.50/hr$48.00–$51.00$52.93/hr-6.5%
Maryland137$48.50/hr$47.50–$49.50$47.60/hr+1.9%
Colorado133$47.00/hr$45.50–$47.00$47.78/hr-1.6%
Virginia428$45.00/hr$43.50–$47.00$45.12/hr-0.3%
Texas255$43.50/hr$43.00–$44.50$45.86/hr-5.1%
Illinois648$42.50/hr$42.50–$46.00$45.36/hr-6.3%
Missouri143$42.50/hr$37.50–$42.50$41.30/hr+2.9%
Florida131$40.60/hr$38.23–$43.57$43.58/hr-6.8%

Not shown: 12 states with a sample under 100 postings or a posted median that disagrees with the BLS mean by more than a third (IN for the latter). For full-coverage wage data by state use the BLS-based salary guide.

Shifts

76,589 postings (37%) state a shift. Of those: day 57%, night 19%, rotating 16%, evening 6%, weekend 2%, flexible 1%.

How this is built

  • Scope: open postings on public hospital and health-system career sites, counted as of the date shown; job descriptions are never republished. Job descriptions are never republished; only counts and posted pay ranges are aggregated.
  • Pay point: midpoint of the posted range, hourly (annual ÷ 2080), only where both ends and the unit are posted. The top of a posted range is never used as "the pay".
  • Freshness: counts are refreshed monthly and the page shows its date. A posting that disappears from an employer's site drops out of these counts.
  • Reference: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, Registered Nurses, May 2025, state mean hourly wages.

Data as of September 26, 2026.

Frequently asked questions

Which state has the most open nursing jobs right now?

Florida, with 13,022 open postings on hospital and health-system career sites as of September 26, 2026, followed by New York (11,665) and Texas (11,388).

Which city has the most open healthcare jobs?

New York, NY: 2,461 open postings (332 for registered nurses) as of September 26, 2026; then Boston, MA (1,828) and Philadelphia, PA (1,656).

Which health system is hiring the most nurses?

By open postings on its own career site, Trinity Health (10,161 postings across 37 states), then Universal Health Services (5,369) and Davita Inc (3,617).

How many hospital job postings state pay?

11.6% of 207,368 open postings state a pay range with both ends. Coverage is highest in pay-transparency states, Vermont 72.7%, Maine 41.1%, Massachusetts 35.5%, and near zero in others.

Where does this data come from?

From open postings on public hospital and health-system career sites (701 employers), aggregated on Betterleap's job board as counts and posted pay ranges. Job descriptions are never republished, and only postings that state a full pay range count toward pay figures.

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