Occupation / job
Surgeons, All Other
Median annual pay. Half earn less than this.
Hourly at a standard 2,080-hour year. We do not yet have unpaid-time or cost data for this, so this is not an adjusted figure.
The middle half. A quarter earn below this range.
Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 · view
What this figure cannot tell you
It covers people EMPLOYED in this occupation. Anyone who trained for it and was never hired is not in the median above, and neither is anyone doing the work self-employed. No verified count of qualified people exists for this occupation, so this page shows none rather than an estimate. Why that matters · The occupations where we could source it
Who this suits
At $414,010 — $363,990 a year clear of the $50,020 all-occupation midpoint — Surgeons, All Other sits at the top of what BLS publishes. Read the gate before the figure: at this level there is always one, and it is usually measured in years.
With 25,140 employed as Surgeons, All Other, most metros have a working market: several employers, visible turnover, and the ability to change jobs without moving house.
Clinical practice suits people who can decide under uncertainty with a patient in front of them, and who are steady about the documentation, the shifts and the liability that come attached.
No verified preparation time is on file for Surgeons, All Other. The wage survey behind every figure on this page asks employers what they pay, not what they required, so the honest answer here is that we do not know.
Who should not do this
Bottom quarter under $134,850, top quarter over $511,420: 3.8x, or $31,380 a month. At this stretch the label has stopped describing one occupation, and every summary statistic about it — including the midpoint — should be treated with suspicion.
The bottom quarter of this field earns $134,850 — $64.83 an hour, $84,830 above the $50,020 national midpoint. When even the worst-paid quarter of Surgeons, All Other is this far ahead, the barrier to entry is doing the work of keeping it there.
Avoid it if you cannot do nights, cannot carry medico-legal exposure, or need to be finished thinking about work when the shift ends.
You will not find a "what share make it" figure here. 25,140 is a headcount of the employed, which is a numerator without a denominator — everyone who qualified and never got hired is missing from it, and we will not estimate them to complete a percentage.
What the spread tells you
From $134,850 to $511,420 is 3.8x — the shape of a field where a minority captures most of the money. The midpoint of $414,010 is arithmetic, not a forecast, and treating it as one is the standard mistake here.
Put in money rather than ratios: $134,850 at the 25th percentile, $414,010 at the midpoint, $511,420 at the 75th. $376,570 separates the quarter of Surgeons, All Other at the bottom from the quarter at the top.
Getting to $511,420, the 75th percentile, is worth $97,410 a year more than the $414,010 midpoint and $376,570 more than the $134,850 a quarter of Surgeons, All Other settle for.
Getting from $134,850 to the $414,010 midpoint is $279,160; getting from there to $511,420 is only $97,410. The hard part of the range is the lower half, which is also the half a newcomer starts in.
Per hour at a standard full-time year that is $199.04 at the midpoint for Surgeons, All Other, $64.83 at the 25th percentile and $245.87 at the 75th, against $24.04 for the typical American job.
What these figures are, and what they are not
Employers reported these wages for people already working as Surgeons, All Other. The self-employed are excluded, so $414,010 does not describe an independent doing the same work.
With no unpaid-hours or cost data for Surgeons, All Other, the hourly figure is $414,010 over a 2,080-hour year — a unit conversion, not an adjustment.
How this is calculated · Self-employment failure rates · What credentials cost and pay back · Look up something else