Recruiting a pediatrician.

What does a pediatrician earn?

Ranked among the states and the District of Columbia where BLS publishes both the mean wage and the employment figure; 5 of the 51 are left out because BLS withholds or top-codes a figure or has no row. The pediatrics salary page has every state, the metro areas and BLS’s caveats.

BLS gives general pediatricians a mean wage of $212,110 (BLS, May 2025 release) a year and a median of $210,040 (BLS, May 2025 release), with about 39,390 (BLS, May 2025 release) on payrolls. BLS counts pediatric subspecialists such as neonatologists and pediatric cardiologists in the same occupation, so a general pediatrician's offer may sit below the mean.

Offers follow the primary care pattern: a salary guarantee that turns into production pay. What separates them is newborn nursery rounding, hospital call, weekend clinic hours, and whether the practice has the nurses and phone staff to handle sick-visit demand in winter.

Where do pediatricians look for jobs?

Where new hires come from

Most new hires come straight from residency

Who employs them

Independent pediatric practices, health system pediatric groups, children's hospitals and their hospitalist programs, community health centers and pediatric urgent care.

Who you compete with for candidates

Children's hospitals offering hospitalist and subspecialty careers, urgent care chains with shift schedules, and fellowships that draw residents into subspecialties.

Residents finish a three-year program and many decide during the final year whether to enter practice, take a hospitalist job or start a fellowship. Practices that host residents for continuity clinic or electives see them first.

The American Academy of Pediatrics runs its own career center, which reaches pediatricians and residents directly. Word of mouth among residents who have toured practices does a great deal of the rest.

• PedJobs Per posting

  $485 per 30-day posting

  The academy's career center, with posting lengths that cover a residency recruiting season and packages that add print in its publications. Name the call and nursery duties in the posting.

Every board’s listing, with its posting lengths and how CV access is sold, is in the job board directory; what a physician job posting costs compares them.

The locum agency directory has each agency’s states, malpractice coverage and physician pay where it states them.

What does an open pediatrics position cost?

What the calculator has for pediatrics

• Revenue one physician brings in: $1,612,500 a year (estimate, AMN Healthcare (Merritt Hawkins), 2019)
• Locum pay: $100 to $120 an hour (estimate, Locumstory (CHG Healthcare), 2025)
• First-year pay: $212,110 a year (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025)
• Contingency agency fee: 20 to 30% of first-year pay (estimate, MedStaff Nationwide, 2026)

The calculator holds a survey revenue figure of $1,612,500 (estimate, AMN Healthcare (Merritt Hawkins), 2019) a year per pediatrician to an affiliated hospital; a private practice should replace it with its own collections, which come mostly from visits and vaccines. Locum pediatricians are paid $100 to $120 (estimate, Locumstory (CHG Healthcare), 2025) an hour.

In pediatrics the cost compounds through families. When a new parent cannot get a newborn visit, the whole household tends to move its care to the practice that could see them, and those patients stay for years.

Open the calculator with pediatrics chosen

Which recruiting channels work for pediatrics?

The residency calendar sets the pace, and a practice that hosts residents has an advantage no posting can buy. Experienced pediatricians, by contrast, respond to schedule changes and practice culture.

Questions to ask

• Who rounds on newborns, and how often does that fall to the new pediatrician?
• How is after-hours phone triage handled?
• Do you host residents, and from which program?
• Is the practice in a primary care shortage area?

Which rules bite pediatrics recruiting?

Pediatricians refer to children's hospitals and order tests in the office, and many work for systems that own both, so the usual limits on physician pay apply.

Every federal rule this site cites, grouped by what a practice or recruiter is doing, is on the federal rules page. For the contract itself (pay models, tail coverage, restrictive covenants), read the physician employment contract, clause by clause. These notes describe the rules and cite them; they are not legal advice for a particular offer or contract.