While we don’t recommend accepting a new position solely based on salary considerations, and compensation packages are about a lot more than just salary, it’s essential to know and be paid your worth as a doctor. This enhances career longevity and combats physician burnout, and doctors have worked hard to get to where they are and deserve to be appropriately compensated. Having transparency about what the average pediatrician salary is (and having access to information about other typical parts of the compensation package) is essential to coming to the negotiation table prepared to negotiate the best contract for yourself when exploring new jobs.
On our physician communities, we’ve seen so many physicians, especially those in pediatric fields, express that they’ve been undervalued. This is why we feel so strongly about compiling aggregate physician salary data on what doctors make, and making it available to our members for free, as opposed to having to pay for expensive databases that may not break down information in a way that allows an apples to apples comparison for their particular job description.
Average physician salaries depend on several factors, including specialty, practice environment, and location. Since specialty is one of the major determinants of physician compensation, we’ve broken down the aggregate data from our physician salary and compensation database provided by physicians across the country to help assess how much doctors make by specialty.
Other factors such as hours worked, location, and practice environment all play a role as well, so we look at differences in some of these categories as well. Unless otherwise noted, the data included in our analysis below was collected from mid-2023 through mid-2024.
Disclaimers/Disclosures: This information is derived from our physician salary and compensation databases, but is subject to self-reporting errors and availability of relevant data points from our online communities. This information is provided for educational purposes only, and is aimed at advocating for individual physicians. It is not intended to be used for collective bargaining; please see additional disclosures and disclaimers on the physician salary data pages. Please also do your own research before making any decisions based on the information provided. We do not provide individualized advice and are not formal financial, legal, or otherwise licensed professionals. We highly recommend having your physician employment agreement reviewed by a physician contract review attorney to ensure you have the most up to date and relevant information for your specific situation.
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Average Pediatrician Salary
The average annual salary across all the pediatricians who contributed to our salary and compensation data was $249,000. This excludes residents or fellows, focusing on attending physicians.
Providing a single average annual salary for a pediatrician, however, can be misleading, as several different factors come into play. We want to break this number down to help you find more relevant comparison points.
Average Full-Time Pediatrician Salary
Many pediatricians work full-time, but part-time contributions can skew the overall average, so let’s look at them separately.
For a full-time equivalent, we assumed an average number of hours worked a week of 36 hours or more. (We omitted any data points that did not specify their average.)
The average pediatrician salary for a full-time pediatrics doctor was $254,000. To give you an idea on the range of the salaries:
The highest reported salaries for pediatricians ranged from $500,000 - $600,000.
The lowest reported salaries for pediatricians ranged from $125,000 - $150,000.
The median salary across all submitted data points for full-time pediatricians was $240,000.
Average Part-Time Pediatrician Salary
Several of our physician members reported working part-time.
To assess a part-time average, we looked at attending physicians who reported working 16-25 hours a week. We don’t have enough data points to break this down further, so please consider contributing if you haven’t already for future updates to this page. Find links to contribute on our physician salary and compensation data page.
Within the range above, the average part-time pediatrician salary was $154,000.
Average Pediatrician Salary by Specialization
If our pediatricians indicated they worked in a specialty when contributing to our databases, we asked them to reference which specialization they did. Since specialization can pay heavily into salary, let’s look at the average salary breakdown by these specialization categories. These numbers are for doctors that reported working 36+ hours per week or more.
To be included, we required a minimum of 10 data points.
Pediatric cardiology average salary: $289,000
Pediatric endocrinology average salary: $189,000
Pediatric hematology/oncology average salary: $227,000
Pediatrics - neonatology average salary: $324,000
Outside of any other factors we look into below, neonatologists reported the highest average salary for pediatrics specialties in which we had enough relevant data.
Don’t see your specialty listed? If you haven’t recently, please contribute to our physician salary and compensation data so that we can include it in future updates.
Pediatrician Salary by Gender
We looked at reported salaries for full-time physicians who reported working 36+ hours a week and compared what our female physicians averaged compared to their male counterparts, excluding all other factors (such as specialization, location, etc.).
Female pediatricians reported an average salary of $249,000. Male pediatricians reported an average salary of $281,000.
When looking strictly at the average salaries overall, our male doctors averaged around 13% higher salaries than our female doctors.
Pediatrician Salary by Practice Environment
Looking at full-time (36+ hours a week average) attending pediatricians, we broke the data down by where our members reported working to assess the average pay differences by practice environment.
Corporate group, non private equity - $252,000
Corporate group, private equity - $274,000
FQHC and other non-profits - $221,000
Government - not enough data points to assess
Group private practice, non private equity backed - $281,000
Group private practice, private equity backed - $280,000
Academic hospital employee - $245,000
Non-academic hospital employee - $267,000
Solo private practice - not enough data points to assess
While looking at all the different factors together can give you a much better idea of expected pay, our data for full-time pediatricians, not accounting for any other factors assessed above or below, suggests that FQHC (community clinics, etc.) and other nonprofits pay pediatricians the least when it comes to strictly salary.
As a reminder, these organizations can be eligible for many benefits, such as better health benefits, retirement plans and pensions, and Public Student Loan Forgiveness (PSLF). The lifestyle can also be significantly better in regards to call, patient volume, and hassles with insurance and private payers. Therefore, it’s important not to conclude what the best overall compensation package for pediatrics is based on salary alone.
Looking strictly at the practice environment, pediatricians reported earning a higher average salary for private equity backed corporate groups versus non private equity backed groups. What these numbers don’t show is that the pediatricians working for the private equity backed corporate groups reported working significantly more hours than their non private equity counterparts. As you’ll see below, this can also impact salary earnings.
Therefore, we reiterate the importance of looking at the entire compensation package on our salary and negotiation databases before deciding that one job really is better based on average salary alone.
Pediatrician Salary by Type of Employment
When submitting data, our physician members indicated their type of employment. Looking at full-time attending physicians (36+ average hours a week):
1099 (single entity regular job, 1099 arrangement) - not enough data to assess
W2 employee - $245,000 a year
Locums/per diem - not enough data to assess*
Partner/owner - $353,000 a year
All other factors aside, our data suggests there is significant growth potential for pediatricians who are looking for a partner track or are interested in owning their own practice. Partners and owners averaged 44% higher than W2 employees.
Related PSG resources to explore:
* We have a separate locums pay and compensation data set, and have looked at the statistics on locum tenens compensation for doctors separately, where there is much more data about this.
Pediatrician Salary by Location
We looked at salary differences among states for full-time (36+ average hours a week) attending pediatricians. States with less than 10 data points were omitted from our analysis. If you don’t see your state listed and want to see where it stacks up, contribute your physician salary and compensation data today.
Lowest paying states for pediatricians:
New York - $207,000
Missouri - $232,000
Colorado - $237,000
Pennsylvania - $238,000
Texas - $243,000
Highest paying states for pediatricians:
Georgia - $296,000
Florida - $280,000
California - $274,000
Illinois - $260,000
Ohio - $257,000
While what city or local metropolitan area a doctor resides in can factor heavily into the cost of living, and how much a physician actually brings home depends on state and local taxes, assessing different salary options across the country and comparing them to the cost of living can give pediatricians the potential to geoarbitrage if they are willing to move. Just make sure you know what is included in cost of living comparisons (taxes are often excluded and can be significant).
Pediatrician Salary by Hours Worked
Medicine can often be an “eat what you kill” industry, so we looked at how average salaries varied by reported hours worked for our full-time attending pediatricians. Some of our members reported working 71+ hours a week, but the vast majority fell into the averages below. Not surprisingly, we do see a trend of increasing average salaries for pediatricians as hours increase.
36-40 hours a week average - $248,000 a year
41-45 hours a week average - $252,000 a year (1.5% increase)
46-50 hours a week average - $258,000 a year (2% increase)
51-60 hours a week average - $260,000 a year (1% increase)
What may surprise you is the percentage of increase. It’s worth asking yourself if a 12% increase in your amount of time is worth a 1.5% increase in your salary. Remember that a poor work/life balance is a key contributor to physician burnout. Working more hours every week for a small bump in may may end up costing you more in earnings potential over the life of your career if burnout causes you to want to consider other options outside of medicine.
As an aside, we know that many pediatricians spend a lot of time at home charting. You may have heard us talking about AI scribes on the physician communities. They are becoming more and more widespread, and can dramatically decrease the amount of time you spend charting.
We have a free trial and a long standing discount on an AI scribing solution in our practice resources for physicians, in case you need one!
Changes in Average Pediatrician Salary Over Time
As noted above, the data analyzed included contributions from mid 2023 to mid 2024.
We also dug into our previous salary database we started in 2018 to track trends in average pay for pediatricians over time. To compare relative data, we continued to look only at pediatricians out of residency/fellowship who worked on average 36+ hours a week. For 2023, we combined the data from the old data and the new database, cutting off entries at the transition point to help omit any overlapping or duplicate information.
2018-2019: $215,000
2020-2021: $217,000 (1% increase)
2022-2023: $237,000 (9% increase)
With our average salary for pediatricians of $254,000 from our new database covering mid 2023 to mid 2024, we can see salaries continuing to increase for 2024. We hope with continued salary transparency, salaries will continue to increase.
Extra Insights from Pediatricians
As part of our salary and compensation data contributions, members of our physician online community can provide additional comments. As we compiled the data, we also looked for additional insights provided by other pediatricians that could be valuable for job selection and contract negotiations.
A few that might be of use to other pediatrics doctors:
Increasing Your Pediatrician Salary
If the information above has you questioning your current salary, there are a few different ways to increase your income as a pediatrician. But a reminder first: remember to look at the overall picture, taking into consideration all the factors included above and others, such as other compensation in the overall employment package (amount of PTO, call responsibilities, 401(k) match, etc.). Salary is a key component to physician compensation, but it isn’t the only part of a well negotiated physician employment contract.
Talk with your current management. Be practical in expectations and respectful in your request, but see if they can work with you to renegotiate your contract versus risking you leaving. (Use our salary and compensation data for physicians to get an idea of what to try to renegotiate for.)
Look for alternative job opportunities. Sometimes, an employer may either not be able to or just not willing to work with you to get you to where you should be. The same isn’t true everywhere. Interview for a few other positions and get a feel of what the market looks like from the employer’s perspective by what employers are willing to offer.
Explore open opportunities on our Physician Side Gigs job board and physician career resources and education to help you navigate the job search process.
While we think the data above and in our database can be a great tool during the negotiation process, we almost always also recommend hiring a local contract review attorney for physicians to review your contract. They will have invaluable experience when it comes to negotiating physician contracts, including understanding what red flags to watch out for.
If you’re looking to increase your income as a pediatrician but are already at or above your market’s rate, you have options in this situation as well. Opportunities to consider include:
Sleep or lactation consulting
Brand partnerships with kid products (or develop your own!)
Supplementing your regular clinical work with additional telemedicine
Explore more side gigs for pediatricians for ways to increase your income.
Additional Salary and Career Resources for Pediatricians
Explore our related articles and resources on doctor compensation and salaries:
If you haven’t recently, please take a few minutes to contribute! The data provided is used only for the purpose of our database to help physicians like yourself negotiate better compensation by helping provide salary transparency with relevant data. The data is completely anonymous and is only available to members of our Physician Side Gigs Facebook group. Contribution links can be found on our compensation data for physicians page.
Looking for a new career opportunity? Explore the Physician Side Gigs job board for current opportunities.
If you need guidance on negotiating your next contract for the best possible deal, check out:
Also check out our side gigs for pediatricians.