With an aging and ailing population still reeling from health effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, salaries are up in many physician specialties, data from a top physician recruiting firm shows.
“There's a very common theme here,” said Alex Herbison, vice president at AMN Healthcare’s Physician Solutions division, commenting on the data.
“When we look at all of the specialties where we saw a salary increase year over year, all of those fall within a category that we call ‘absolute demand,’” Herbison said. “That ratio really determines something that we would show as some of our most difficult specialties” to find physicians for.
AMN’s findings were based on a representative sample of the 1,420 search engagements the company conducted from April 1, 2024, to March 31, 2025, and includes data on starting salaries and other incentives offered by the company’s clients to physicians across the country.
AMN’s experts used the data to find what they called “absolute demand,” comparing the number of open positions to the entire pool of practicing physicians in the specialty. The five specialties in most “absolute demand” were, in order:
- Hematology/oncology.
- Gastroenterology.
- Endocrinology.
- Cardiology.
- Radiology.
High-demand specialist pay rises
Though the average starting salary for all physicians tracked in the report was $403,000, down slightly from last year’s figure of $406,000, many specialties—especially those characterized as being in high demand—saw increases.
The AMN data shows average-salary trends in these specialties (listed in alphabetical order), as compared with 2023–2024:
- Anesthesiology: $485,000, up 5.5%.
- Cardiology: $470,000, up 18.7%.
- Family medicine: $275,000, up 1.3%.
- Gastroenterology: $552,000, up 3.9%.
- General surgery: $419,000, no change.
- Hematology/oncology: $490,000, up 10.3%.
- Hospital medicine: $279,000, down 1.3%.
- Internal medicine: $292,000, up 7.9%.
- Neurology: $344,000, down 10.1%.
- Obstetrics and gynecology: $371,000, down 4.5%.
- Orthopaedic surgery: $576,000, down 16%.
- Otolaryngology: $487,000, up 36%.
- Pediatrics: $258,000, down 8.5%.
- Psychiatry: $315,000, up 10.4% year over year.
- Radiology: $551,000, up 11.3%.
- Urology: $521,000, up 5.1%.
Note that data on year-over-year salary changes in endocrinology and rheumatology was unavailable. Also, in some physician specialties outlier figures can move the average considerably. For example, in otolaryngology one physician landed an $850,000 annual salary.
Dive deeper to find out how your specialty stacks up with AMN Healthcare’s 2025 report on physician recruiting incentives. And if you are looking for your first job postresidency, get your cheat sheet from the AMA now.
Physician specialists are in high demand
Herbison said the salary increases generally have been driven by an increasing need for specialty care. Data from AMN Healthcare found that 78% of the physician searches they conducted last year were for specialists and 22% were for primary care physicians.
“Coincidentally, all of the specialties that had an increase in compensation year over year fell within the [high ‘absolute demand’] list of 10, with the exception of psychiatry,” he said.
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Demographics, population health drive changes
Herbison said some of the increases can be explained by smaller candidate pools and a population of physicians who are more established in their careers. In many cases, he said, 40% or more of the physicians in a candidate pool are older than 55.
“When I look at ENT [otolaryngology], we're only training about 350 residents year over year. So, with the amount of demand that's in the market, there just are not enough [physicians] being trained for the amount that are retiring,” he said. Therefore, “hospitals and groups have to be more competitive offering higher compensation.”
A general decline in the population’s health has contributed, he added.
“A big piece of this has to do with the fact that we have unhealthy Americans and they're just sicker than they should be,” Herbison said. He also said that increases in hematology-oncology may partially be due to the delayed routine screenings from the COVID-19 public health emergency.
“People didn't go get their routine GI [gastrointestinal] screenings or other screenings they may have needed during the pandemic, and now that's kind of building up on us,” Herbison said.
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