Explore pediatrician salary ranges, hourly rates, and how locum work shapes earning potential in 2026.
Most pediatricians earn between $244,000 and $266,000 annually, with practice ownership, rural demand, and leadership roles pushing compensation higher.
Pediatrics consistently ranks below procedural and surgical specialties in compensation, but it remains one of the most stable long-term physician careers in medicine.
That range is driven primarily by:
The financial upside in pediatrics comes less from specialty choice and more from how physicians structure their career over time.
| Source | What it Measures | Compensation |
|---|---|---|
| Bureau of Labor Statistics (OEWS, May 2024) | Mean annual wage, SOC 29-1221 | $222,987 |
| Merritt Hawkins (2024 Review) | Average starting salary | $244,000 |
| Doximity Physician Compensation Report (2025, based on 2024 data) | Median total compensation | $265,000 |
| Medscape Physician Compensation Report (2026, based on 2025 data) | Average total compensation | $266,000 |
| SalaryDr (as of April 2026, 261 verified submissions) | Median verified compensation | $310,000 |
The gap between starting salary benchmarks and physician-reported compensation reflects career progression, ownership opportunities, and physicians moving into higher-demand markets later in their careers.
The honest framing is a range with context, not a single definitive number.
Hourly pay gives the cleanest comparison between W-2 employment and locum work.
| Compensation Type | Hourly Rate |
|---|---|
| W-2 employed (BLS national mean) | ~$107 per hour |
| Locum tenens market rate | $93 to $130 per hour |
Sources: BLS OEWS, SOC 29-1221 and ZipRecruiter (2025).
The locum rate band for pediatrics is narrower and lower than most physician specialties. This reflects the market reality: pediatric locum assignments are typically outpatient, carry lower acuity than emergency or surgical specialties, and compete with a steady supply of available pediatricians in many markets. The value proposition for locum pediatrics is schedule flexibility and supplemental income, not rate premiums.
Pediatrics has a narrower locum rate band than most physician specialties because many assignments are outpatient and lower acuity. The primary value proposition is flexibility and schedule control, not massive hourly-rate premiums.
Subspecialization in pediatrics changes the income picture, though the direction varies.
In pediatrics, schedule intensity and practice setting often matter more than fellowship credentials alone.
Location drives meaningful variation in pediatric compensation. BLS state-level data for SOC 29-1221 shows a wide spread across states.
The spread from Louisiana ($354,060) to the District of Columbia ($143,880) is more than $210,000. That gap is larger than many non-physician salaries entirely. Rural and underserved markets consistently pay more for pediatricians, while academic medical centers and high-cost urban markets often sit at the lower end of the range because physician supply is concentrated there.
The highest-paying pediatric opportunities tend to come from underserved and rural communities, not from prestigious metro areas. Physicians willing to practice outside major cities gain both higher pay and stronger negotiating position.
Most pediatricians operate in clinic-based outpatient schedules centered on preventive care, chronic disease management, and longitudinal family relationships. Pediatric hospitalists and emergency pediatricians follow more shift-based structures, but general pediatrics remains primarily continuity-driven.
Unlike procedural specialties, pediatric income compounds more through patient panel growth and long-term practice stability than through throughput alone.
Pediatrics faces a projected workforce gap. HRSA (2025) projects supply-to-demand adequacy of just 86 percent for primary care pediatrics, meaning the field is heading toward a structural undersupply.
AAMC workforce data points to a broader primary care shortage in the coming decade, and pediatrics is not exempt. The combination of an aging physician workforce, residency slot constraints, and growing demand from Medicaid-covered child populations creates persistent coverage gaps, particularly in rural and community health settings.
Compensation trends reflect the squeeze. Medscape (2026, based on 2025 data) reports pediatrics compensation was flat year-over-year. Doximity (2025, based on 2024 data) showed a 3.7 percent year-over-year increase. The divergence likely reflects different survey populations, but neither source shows the kind of rapid compensation growth seen in surgical or procedural specialties.
Flat or modest compensation growth in a specialty with projected shortages means the market has not fully priced in the supply gap yet. Locum demand in pediatrics is likely to grow as coverage gaps widen.
Locum pediatrics is less about maximizing hourly rates and more about designing a schedule that fits a physician’s life and career goals.
To exceed $300K:
The strongest financial model in pediatrics is often hybrid. Supplemental locum work can meaningfully increase total income without requiring physicians to leave employed practice entirely.
Higher locum rates create more than additional income potential. 1099 pediatricians gain flexibility in how income, taxes, geography, and workload are structured over time.
While independent physicians manage their own benefits, retirement planning, continuing education, and taxes, they also gain access to advantages unavailable in most employed models, including business deductions, larger retirement contribution limits, the Qualified Business Income deduction, and S-corp tax optimization at higher income levels.
For many pediatricians, the larger shift is control. Schedule, clinic structure, geography, and workload become variables they can actively design around their career goals.
The value of locum pediatrics is often flexibility first and income optimization second.
Pediatrics remains one of the longest-tenure physician specialties in medicine. Many pediatricians practice for decades, which makes career design and sustainability especially important over time.
Early-career compensation typically starts near the lower end of the national range before increasing through leadership roles, ownership opportunities, and higher-demand practice settings later in a physician’s career.
Locum work also fits naturally across multiple career phases:
Pediatrics rewards physicians who think long term. Flexibility and career sustainability often matter as much as compensation alone.
In pediatrics, continuity and communication matter. Families, clinics, and hospital systems rely heavily on consistency, which means poor scheduling coordination or delayed credentialing can create downstream disruption quickly.
The best locum partners reduce operational friction before the assignment starts and help pediatricians move into stable clinical environments with clear expectations.
Barton supports pediatricians through:
For pediatricians, the quality of a locum assignment often comes down to stability, communication, and operational reliability.
The locum industry has a baseline problem. Smaller or less established agencies routinely cut corners that cost physicians real time and real money: credentialing delays that push start dates, licensing gaps that leave physicians exposed, malpractice coverage that turns out to be less than it looked, and invoices that drag on after the assignment ends. These are not edge cases. They are the baseline.
Barton Associates differentiates on three verified features.
Physician-led clinical leadership. Barton has a Chief Medical Officer and physician-led clinical oversight, a structure that is unheard of in the locum staffing category.
Earned partnership for physician financial life. Barton partners with Earned, a wealth and tax firm built specifically for doctors, to give locum clinicians access to entity formation, tax planning, and long-term financial strategy designed around physician income.
Reflective-practice continuing medical education platform. Barton operates a continuing medical education platform built around reflective practice on clinical work physicians are already doing.
A reliable locum partner shows up in the moments when something goes wrong. Ask any agency how it handles a credentialing delay, a clinical concern at a site, or a mid-assignment malpractice question. The answer separates established partners from everything else.
Barton coordinates your job search from start to finish!
We’ll schedule a phone consultation to discuss your interests, goals, and work history to find the right opportunities.
Your Barton rep will submit your information to the facility you want to take an assignment at and work on next steps.
Barton handles licensing, credentialing, and travel arrangements before you arrive so you’re ready on day one.
Most general pediatricians earn between $223,000 and $266,000 annually, depending on experience, practice setting, and location. BLS reports a national mean of $222,987, while Doximity and Medscape place the median and average at $265,000 and $266,000 respectively.
Yes, by most national benchmarks. Merritt Hawkins reports pediatrics as the lowest average starting salary among surveyed specialties at $244,000. That said, pediatric compensation is still well above the general workforce and provides a stable, long-tenure career.
The BLS national mean hourly wage for general pediatricians is $107.21. Locum tenens rates run from $93 to $130 per hour depending on geography, assignment type, and market demand.
Not necessarily on a per-hour basis. The locum rate band ($93 to $130 per hour) overlaps with the BLS mean hourly wage ($107.21). The value of locum pediatrics is schedule flexibility, geographic choice, and supplemental income rather than a rate premium. Hybrid models that combine a W-2 base with locum shifts can increase total annual income.
BLS state data shows Louisiana ($354,060), Alaska ($284,210), and California ($283,620) as the top-paying states for general pediatricians. Rural and underserved markets consistently pay more than urban academic centers.
HRSA projects supply-to-demand adequacy of 86 percent for primary care pediatrics, indicating a growing gap. Coverage gaps are most acute in rural and community health settings, which drives both higher pay and sustained locum demand in those markets.
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