The Datum Report

Occupation 2232 · Professional occupations

Registered community nurses

Half of full-time registered community nurses in the UK earn more than £40,897 a year, and half earn less.

Registered community nurses provide general nursing care for the sick, injured and others in need of care, and assist medical doctors with their tasks in settings outside of acute hospitals, such as clinics, health centres or visits to patients’ homes.

How people enter it

Qualification as a nurse is via a diploma or degree course, both of which are provided by universities, or through an apprenticeship. Courses comprise both theoretical and practical work, including placements in hospital and community settings. Full time diploma courses last three years; degree courses last three or four years. Accelerated programmes are available to graduates with a health-related degree. Post-registration training is available to become a specialist practitioner in community nursing.

What the work involves

• plans, manages, provides and evaluates nursing care services within a community care setting
• provides basic care and monitors patients' general health such as blood pressure or body temperature
• administers drugs and medicines, applies surgical dressings and gives other forms of treatment
• assists medical doctors in conducting examinations and other medical procedures
• manages own case load
• plays an educational role for patients and families, helping to develop rehabilitation routines and advising on how to care for their condition in everyday life, disease prevention and nutrition

Also called

Community care nurse · District nurse · Health visitor · Practice nurse

What it pays

How pay has changed

Median gross annual pay for registered community nurses, full-time employees, 2023 to 2025. Each point is that year's ASHE April snapshot as published — revisions are not backfilled into earlier years, and a year ONS withheld is a gap rather than a joined line.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Table

Year-on-year change

The change from each year to the next, in per cent, computed from the figures in the chart above — so the two cannot disagree.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Table

Pay by region

Median gross annual pay for full-time employees, ranked, against the UK figure. 11 of 11 regions are published: ONS withholds a cell where the survey sample cannot support it, and those are shown as gaps rather than dropped — an absent region is not a region without the work in it.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Period 2025. Table

Every regional figure

ONS does not publish occupational pay below region. Cells the survey could not support are shown as withheld, with its reason — adding a region split to a specific occupation leaves roughly a tenth of cells publishable.

Common questions

Classified alongside this

Midwifery nurses · Other registered nursing professionals · Registered children's nurses · Registered mental health nurses · Registered nurse practitioners · Registered specialist nurses