Which pays more, Physical Therapist or Registered Nurse?

The median advertised salary for each is in the table above, along with the 25th and 75th percentiles so you can see the spread rather than one number.

Which has more openings?

Both counts are live and computed at the same moment, so the comparison is like for like.

Postings are read from company career systems continuously; the age row shows how old the listings themselves are.

Side by side

Physical Therapist vs Registered Nurse

Registered Nurse pays more: a median of $102,500 against $96,500. Demand is comparable on both sides. Physical Therapist is the more remote-friendly of the two, by 7.7%. Listings for Physical Therapist move faster — median age 70 days against 77.

Comparison

Side by side

Measure	Physical Therapist	Registered Nurse	Gap
Open postings	40,356	38,089	+2,267
Posted this week	3,573	837
Median salary	$96,500	$102,500	$-6k
25th percentile	$76k	$81k
75th percentile	$120k	$127k
Salary disclosed	8.5%	7.5%
Remote share	13.0%	5.3%	+7.7pp
Median age of posting	70d	77d
Open over 60 days	44.7%	41.2%
Visa sponsorship	23.7%	16.2%

Pay

Pay distribution

Physical Therapist

$43k$167k

Registered Nurse

$46k$177k

Freshness

How old the listings are

Physical Therapist

just posted70d median90d+

Registered Nurse

just posted77d median90d+

Demand

What each side asks for

Physical Therapist — technologies

Spark

72.0%

Kotlin

65.8%

Terraform

59.6%

Snowflake

53.4%

Java

47.2%

dbt

41.0%

Kubernetes

34.8%

Registered Nurse — technologies

Kubernetes

72.0%

SQL

65.8%

GCP

59.6%

Docker

53.4%

Swift

47.2%

Kotlin

41.0%

TypeScript

34.8%

Physical Therapist — employers

Halcyon Energy

9.4%

Lakeshore Hospitality

8.7%

Meridian Software

8.0%

Vantage Logistics

7.2%

Brightline Retail

6.5%

Solstice Biotech

5.8%

Northwind Systems

5.1%

Registered Nurse — employers

Rivergate Media

9.4%

Northwind Systems

8.7%

Beacon Robotics

8.0%

Tidewater Insurance

7.2%

Brightline Retail

6.5%

Meridian Software

5.8%

Umbra Security

5.1%

More comparisons

Other Healthcare comparisons

Both sides are counted the same way on the same day, so the gap is comparable even where the absolute numbers move. Salary figures use only postings that publish a range — the disclosure rate is in the table because a median over 20% of a cohort is a weaker number than one over 70%.