Salary is a big part of whether a job ultimately ends up being a good fit, so it’s important for physicians to know their worth in the job market and to ask for it. Having access to salary data empowers doctors to know whether they are being compensated appropriately. While we have covered how much a pediatrician makes already, we wanted to dive deeper into salaries by specialty and subspecialty, as we believe that salary transparency about what the average specialist pediatrician salary allows doctors to leverage this information during contract negotiations.
We have therefore tried to provide both concrete data points as well as compile aggregate physician salary data on what doctors make, and make it available to our members for free, as opposed to having to pay for expensive databases. Using data gathered from our physician online communities, we have started this series on compensation data by specialty to assess aggregate data from our physician salary and compensation database provided by physicians across the country.
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 are not formal financial, legal, or tax professionals and do not provide individualized advice. You should consult these as appropriate. 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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How Aggregate Stats Were Determined for Pediatric Specialties
For our article below, we only included data from doctors who completed a pediatric residency followed by a specialization or fellowship in a specific field. Physicians who did a different primary track followed by a pediatric specialty have been excluded, as salary outliers in this space such as pediatric surgery could skew the data. If you are in this situation and looking for salary data, check out our series on how much doctors make by specialty for the article for your residency track and explore the section on average salary by specialization. You can also explore our full physician salary and compensation database.
The data for pediatricians below was compiled using data points anonymously contributed to our database between mid-2023 and mid-2024. Unless otherwise noted, the stats below are for full-time attending doctors, determined based on a full-time equivalency of an average 36+ hours worked a week. We excluded data contributed by residents and fellows.
How Much Physicians in Pediatric Specialties Make in 2024
The average annual salary across all the pediatric specialties was $261,000 for 2024. This excludes residents or fellows, focusing on attending physicians.
Providing a single average annual salary for pediatric specialties, however, can be misleading, as specialization can have a huge impact in how much a pediatrician makes. So below, we’ll break this number down to help you find more relevant comparison points.
Average Full-Time Salary for Physicians in Pediatric Specialties for 2024
Many doctors in pediatric specialties work full-time, but part-time contributions can skew the overall average, so let’s look at them separately.
The average 2024 salary for a full-time pediatric specialty doctor was $262,000. To give you an idea on the range of the salaries:
The highest reported salary was $590,000.
The lowest reported salary was $120,000.
The median salary was $245,000.
Below, we explore pediatrician salaries by specialty, including the highest paying pediatric specialties and the lowest paying pediatric specialties.
Average Part-Time Salary for Physicians in Pediatric Specialties for 2024
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.
The average 2024 part-time salary for a doctor in a pediatric specialty was $220,000.
Below, we further break down what pediatricians in specialties make by hours worked.
How Much Pediatricians Make by Specialization
As we’ve seen throughout our how much doctors make by specialty series, salaries vary heavily depending on what specialty doctors practice. Given the number of different specialties within pediatrics, we wanted to break down the average salary to help provide better insights for our physician members.
We have more data points for certain specialties than others, and can provide better insights with more data. If you would like to see your specialty featured or expanded upon, please take a few minutes to contribute your anonymous physician salary and compensation data to our database. We will continue to add more articles by subspecialty and update existing articles as we receive additional data.
Average Adolescent Medicine Physician Salary
The average salary for a pediatrician specialized in adolescent medicine was $200,000 for 2024.
The lowest reported salary was $170,000 and the highest was $253,000.
Average Pediatric Anesthesiologist Salary
We did not have enough data points to assess an average for pediatric anesthesia, as the vast majority of physicians on our database that reported being pediatric anesthesiologists did an anesthesia residency and then specialized in pediatrics. We are aware that there are joint pathway training programs but did not have enough data from those in these tracks. Although we excluded physicians doing another primary residency prior to specializing in pediatrics so as not to skew the overall data in the article for pediatrics subspecialties, we did look at these numbers when preparing the article.
If you’re curious, we did note when compiling the data that pediatric anesthesiologists have a high earnings potential, with one salary reported at $1,200,000. This was in fact the highest data point related to a specialization in pediatrics that we saw when compiling the data for this article. You should look at our full physician salary and negotiation database for physicians to see the raw data points and compare apples to apples in your situation
Learn more about the average salary for an anesthesiologist.
Average Pediatric Cardiologist Salary
The average salary for a pediatric cardiologist for 2024 was $301,000, which was 15% higher than the average across all specialties. Salaries ranged from $200,000 to $590,000, with a median salary of $295,000, which is 20% higher than the median pediatric specialty doctor salary.
This difference between average salaries and median salaries is a good reminder that a lot of different factors can influence salaries and the importance of comparing your situation to relevant data points and not just the overall averages. View our full free physician salary and compensation database to explore what cardiologists similar to you are making.
While pediatric cardiologists earned more on average compared to other pediatric specialties, they earned significantly less than other cardiologists, who averaged $583,000 for 2024.
Learn more about the average salary for a cardiologist.
Average Critical Care Pediatrician Salary
The average salary for a critical care pediatrician for 2024 was $327,000, which is 25% more than the average across all specialties. Salaries ranged from $213,000 - $500,000, with a median salary of $315,000.
Average Developmental-Behavioral Pediatrician Salary
The average salary for a doctor that specializes in developmental-behavioral pediatrics is $230,000. While we don’t have as many data points as we typically like to dig further, we can see from the current respondents that on average, this specialty tends to make less than the average for pediatric specialties.
Average Pediatric Emergency Medicine (EM) Salary
The average pediatric emergency medicine (EM) salary for 2024 was $289,000, which is 10% higher than the average across all pediatric specialties. Salaries ranged from $240,000 to $450,000, though it’s important to note that emergency medicine physicians are typically paid on an hourly rate, and many of our pediatric EM doctors reported these as well.
The average rate was $236/hour, which was similar to the average hourly rate for all emergency medicine physicians ($238/hour).
Learn more about the average salary for an emergency medicine physician.
Average Pediatric Endocrinologist Salary
The average pediatric endocrinologist salary for 2024 was $203,000, with a median salary of $180,000. This is 29% less than the average salary for pediatric specialties. Salaries ranged from $130,000 - $350,000. This is also significantly less (38%) than the average salary for endocrinologists. Overall, we’ve found from our database on how much doctors make that endocrinology is one of the least paying specialties for doctors.
Learn more about the average salary for an endocrinologist.
Average Pediatric Gastroenterologist Salary
The average pediatric gastroenterologist salary for 2024 was $252,000, which is 4% less than the average across pediatric specialties. This is also less than half the average salary for adult gastroenterologists in 2024 ($606,000).
A few additional stats for pediatric gastroenterologists:
The median salary was $240,000.
The lowest salary was $147,000.
The highest salary was $325,000.
Learn more about the average gastroenterologist salary.
Average Pediatric Hematology Oncology Salary
The average pediatric salary in hematology/oncology (heme-onc) was $220,000, which is significantly (19%) less than the average across all pediatric specialties. Salaries ranged from $130,000 to $350,000, with a median salary of $217,500.
There were several different distinctions within this subspecialty, including:
Hematology oncology
Bone marrow transplant (BMT)
Oncology only
Of these subsets, we only have enough data to determine an average for combined pediatric hematology oncology, which was slightly higher at $223,000, though this average was significantly lower than the average adult heme-onc salary for 2024 ($496,000).
Learn more about the average hematologist oncologist (heme-onc) salary.
As we saw with general hematology oncology, some of the lowest reported salaries were for bone marrow transplant (BMT) specialists.
Average Pediatric Hospitalist Salary
The average pediatric hospitalist salary for 2024 was $225,000, which is 16% less than the average across pediatric specialties. We saw a similar trend with average salaries for internal medicine doctors, where hospitalists on average make less than general physicians in their field of medicine. We also noted when we looked at the average hospitalist salary that pediatric hospitalists were paid the least of the four hospitalist specialties we had enough data to assess averages for.
Salaries for pediatric hospitalists ranged from $120,000 (the lowest reported salary across all pediatric specialties) to $413,000. The median salary was $219,500.
Like emergency medicine pediatricians, many hospitalists reported hourly rates along with their average salaries. The average rate was $133/hour.
Learn more about the average hospitalist salary.
Average Neonatologist Salary
The average neonatologist salary for 2024 was $314,000, which is 20% higher than the average across pediatric specialties. The median salary was $300,000, with salaries ranging from $180,000 to $550,000.
We would love to dig deeper into this specialty and almost have enough data to do so. If you haven’t already, please contribute your anonymous physician salary and compensation data today so we can add this specialty to our series.
Average Pediatric Nephrologist Salary
The average pediatric nephrologist salary for 2024 was $227,000, which is 15% less than the average across pediatric specialties. Reported salaries ranged from $161,000 - $350,000.
Average Pediatric Neurologist Salary
The average pediatric neurologist salary for 2024 was $275,000, which is 5% higher than the average across pediatric specialties. It is significantly less than the average in neurology, which was $360,000 for 2024. Reported salaries ranged from $185,000 - $440,000.
Learn more about the average neurology salary.
Average Pediatric Pulmonologist Salary
The average pediatric pulmonologist salary for 2024 was $263,000, which is about the same as the average across pediatric specialties. The lowest reported salary was $175,000. The highest salary was $500,000.
Average Pediatric Surgeon Salary
While we did not include surgeons in pediatric subspecialties in our data used for this article, as this is a separate pathway from pediatrics residency similar to anesthesia as noted above, we did note when compiling the data that pediatric subspecialties in surgery tend to do very well. Along with our pediatric anesthesiologists, pediatric surgeons reported four of the top six highest salaries before they were removed from the dataset.
Learn more about:
Highest Paying Pediatric Specialties
As we see above, the specialty you practice factors heavily into salary within pediatrics. Of the specialties we have enough data points to assess averages for, the top five highest paying pediatric specialties are:
Pediatric critical care medicine: $327,000 a year
Neonatology: $314,000 a year
Pediatric cardiology: $301,000 a year
Pediatric emergency medicine: $289,000 a year
Pediatric neurology: $275,000 a year
Lowest Paying Pediatric Specialties
Unfortunately as we noted when we looked at how much doctors make by specialty, the sad reality is that many of the lowest paid specialties in medicine are in pediatrics. Of the pediatric specialties we have enough data points to assess averages for, the lowest paying specialties are:
Adolescent medicine: $200,000 a year
Pediatric endocrinology: $203,000 a year
Pediatric hematology oncology (heme-onc): $220,000 a year
Pediatric hospital medicine: $225,000 a year
Pediatric nephrology: $227,000 a year
We hope increased salary transparency can help raise salaries for pediatricians as physicians continue to advocate for their worth in the marketplace.
The Impact of Procedures or Interventions on Pediatrician Specialist Pay
As we noted in our series on how much doctors make, procedural specialties tend to make more than specialties that do not have a procedural component due to the way insurance reimbursements are currently structured within the US healthcare industry.
While we don’t have enough data to dig into subsets of each specialty, we did observe the following:
Physicians that commonly perform procedures or interventions, such as cardiologists and critical care physicians, were among the highest paid pediatricians.
Specialties that don’t typically have a procedural component, such as endocrinology and nephrology, were among the lowest paying specialties for pediatricians.
The difference in pay between the lowest paying specialty ($200,000) and the highest paying specialty ($327,000) is over 60%, highlighting the potential differences.
How Much Pediatric Specialty Doctors Make by Hours Worked
Medicine is often an “eat what you kill” model, so we like to look at how income increases by the average number of hours a physician reports working a week.
21-25 hours - $227,000 a year
26-30 hours - $273,000 a year
31-35 hours - $266,000 a year
36-40 hours - $248,000 a year
41-45 hours - $254,000 a year
46-50 hours - $270,000 a year
51-60 hours - $267,000 a year
61-70 hours - $292,000 a year
71+ hours - $317,000 a year
Generally, we see that average salaries increase with the average number of hours worked. We see that salaries are significantly higher for 26-35 hours a week versus 36-45 hours a week. When we looked at the data, we noted that the higher values for 26-35 hours a week were reported by shift physicians in emergency medicine and hospital medicine. These averages thus might be misleading due to inconsistent reporting on how doctors define work weeks based on different schedule structures.
We always like to point out that it isn’t always a direct tradeoff, i.e. working an additional 20% a week doesn’t necessarily mean a 20% increase in pay. Always remember to take into consideration work/life balance. You don’t want to work so much that you face burnout and consider leaving a career in medicine, which can then negatively impact your earnings potential for years to come.
How Much Do Pediatric Specialty Doctors Work?
Along with salary by hours worked, we also like to look at how much on average doctors report working. Among different pediatric specialties, doctors reported working:
On average, physicians working in pediatric specialties work 36-45 hours a week, though we did note that outside this majority, significantly more doctors worked 46+ hours a week than worked 35 or less.
In addition, over 25% reported spending an additional 5+ hours a week charting at home on top of these hours reported, which can add another burden to the work week.
If you find yourself spending a lot of time at home charting, an AI scribe may be able to 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!
Additional Factors that Affect Physician Pediatric Salaries
We often like to look at other factors that play into the average salary by specialty such as:
Employment type
Gender
Location
Practice environment
While these all contribute to what the market rate is for your specialty, we don’t currently have enough data to dive into each of these factors by pediatric specialty. To get an idea of how these different factors affect pay, check out our average pediatrician salary article, where we assess the trends across pediatric specialties and general pediatrics for these additional factors.
As a reminder, it’s always best to compare your situation to specific, relevant data points, which is why we offer our free physician salary and compensation database to all of our physician members completely free of charge.
For those of you interested in a very high level overview:
Average Pediatrician Salary by Employment Type
Partners and owners averaged $353,000 a year, which was 44% higher than W2 employees at $245,000 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.
Learn more about the pros and cons of private practice.
Learn more about the steps needed to start a private practice.
How Much Pediatricians Make by Gender
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.
Average Pediatrician Salary by State
Pediatrician Pay by Practice Environment
Learn more about the average pediatrician salary.
Increasing Your Salary Within a Pediatric Specialty
If the information above has you questioning your current salary, there are a few different ways to increase your income. But a reminder: remember to look at the overall picture. Salary is a key component to physician compensation, but it isn’t the only part of a well negotiated physician employment contract.
If you like where you work but don’t love the pay, consider setting aside a time to talk with management. If you are a valued part of their team, they may be willing to work with you to renegotiate your contract versus risking you leaving. Their answer may be no, but it doesn’t hurt to ask. Be practical in what you’re expecting and respectful in your request. Diving deeper into the salary and compensation data for physicians for comparable situations can help you get a target idea of what to try to renegotiate for.
Looking for additional career opportunities can also help. 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. That doesn’t mean every job will come with the same constraints. Interviewing for a few other positions can give you 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 explore all our 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 contract red flags to watch out for.
If you’re looking to increase your income but are already at or above your market’s rate, you have options in this situation as well. There are several popular side gig options, depending on your specialty. Explore:
You can also explore our side gig ideas for pediatricians.
Additional Salary and Career Resources
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 all our popular medical and nonmedical side gig ideas for doctors.