The Datum Report

Occupation 2233 · Professional occupations

Registered specialist nurses

Half of full-time registered specialist nurses in the UK earn more than £45,140 a year, and half earn less.

Registered specialist nurses provide specialised nursing care and plan ongoing treatment for the sick, injured and others in need of care, take responsibility for patients within their sphere of practice and assist medical doctors with their tasks, work with other healthcare professionals and within teams of healthcare workers. They advise on and teach nursing practices.

How people enter it

A degree or equivalent qualification is required as well as significant relevant experience. 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 for a range of clinical specialisms.

What the work involves

• provides specialist care in their area of expertise, assesses patients, determines treatments and conducts a variety of medical procedures
• consults with and provides guidance to other nurses and healthcare professionals within their specialism
• gives consultations with patients and their families to explain a patient's condition and possible treatments
• plans duty rotas and organises and directs the work and training of ward and theatre nursing staff
• advises on nursing care, disease prevention, nutrition, etc. and liaises with hospital board/management on issues concerning nursing policy
• plans, manages, provides and evaluates nursing care services for patients, supervises the implementation of nursing care plans
• delivers lectures, and other forms of formal training relating to nursing practice

Also called

Advanced primary care nurse · Intensive care nurse · Clinical nurse specialist · Theatre manager (hospital service)

What it pays

How pay has changed

Median gross annual pay for registered specialist 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. 10 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 community nurses · Registered mental health nurses · Registered nurse practitioners