The national ceiling for Orthopedics compensation currently sits at $975,000 annually. The floor is $350,000. That $625,000 spread represents the difference between a comfortable career and generational wealth, and it exists within the same specialty, in the same country, often separated by nothing more than a state line. There are 211 active Orthopedics listings nationwide, spanning 41 states. The data reveals a market defined not by scarcity, but by extreme geographic arbitrage.
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The Orthopedics Job Market at a Glance
Total listings: 211. Listings with disclosed salary data: 32. Full compensation range: $350,000 to $975,000. Average salary range: $579,391 to $651,634.
That average range understates the opportunity. The top quartile of disclosed listings pushes well into the $700,000-plus range, and multiple markets are offering $850,000 or more. The floor, meanwhile, sits nearly $230,000 below the national average low—a gap wide enough to fund a second career or an early retirement, depending on which market you choose.
States with active listings include New York, California, Florida, Illinois, Oregon, Missouri, Iowa, Kentucky, Texas, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Ohio, Maryland, Michigan, Oklahoma, Maine, New Mexico, Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas, Minnesota, Washington, Wisconsin, Arizona, South Dakota, South Carolina, West Virginia, Indiana, Wyoming, Vermont, Georgia, Kansas, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Utah, Louisiana, Idaho, New Jersey, Virginia, Alabama, North Dakota, and Colorado. Demand is truly national. Compensation is not.
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How States Stack Up
Overperformers: Missouri leads the nation with an average range of $850,000 to $890,000, a figure that would be remarkable even in a high-cost coastal market (this is Cape Girardeau). Iowa matches it at $850,000, proving that the Midwest is not a consolation prize. Illinois averages $665,000 to $725,000, placing it in the top tier without requiring a move to a rural zip code. Oregon delivers $680,000 to $705,000, combining West Coast quality of life with compensation that rivals the heartland. New York averages $588,393 to $670,235 across 14 salary listings, a respectable showing for a state that offers volume and variety in equal measure.
Near-average performers: California sits at $522,667 to $581,333, nearly matching the national average and confirming its role as a baseline market for high-earning specialists. Florida’s lone disclosed listing came in at $450,000, roughly $129,000 below the national average low—a reminder that sunshine is not a salary strategy.
Underperformers: Maryland and Vermont both report ranges of $350,000 to $400,000, a gap of $179,000 to $229,000 below the national average low. Ohio averages $400,000 to $550,000, still trailing the national benchmark by nearly $30,000 on the low end. New Jersey spans $400,000 to $600,000, a wide range that suggests inconsistency rather than opportunity.
Volume leaders: New York leads with 25 listings. Kentucky follows with 16. Florida and Oregon each posted 10. Maine and New Mexico each logged 9. Kentucky, Maine, and New Mexico—all high-volume states—provided zero salary data, rendering them invisible to compensation-focused candidates. New York combines the highest volume with above-average pay. Florida combines high volume with below-average disclosed pay, a mismatch worth interrogating.
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What This Means If You’re a Physician
If your priority is maximum compensation: Focus on Missouri and Iowa. The highest disclosed listing is in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, offering $850,000 to $890,000 annually. West Islip, New York, also reached $850,000 on the high end. Both markets are paying at or near the national ceiling, and neither requires you to live in a major metropolitan area (or pay taxes accordingly).
If your priority is maximum optionality: New York offers 25 listings, the most in the nation, with an average range of $588,393 to $670,235. You will not maximize your earnings here, but you will maximize your ability to choose your practice setting, subspecialty focus, and geographic submarket. Illinois and Oregon also combine volume with strong pay, offering a middle path between scarcity and saturation.
If your priority is balance: Illinois delivers top-decile compensation ($665,000 to $725,000) without the isolation of rural practice or the cost structure of coastal cities. Oregon offers similar compensation with access to both urban and rural markets. Avoid Maryland, Vermont, and Florida unless non-financial factors dominate your decision matrix—all three pay $100,000 to $200,000 below the national average.
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What This Means If You’re a Recruiter
Salary transparency rate: 15.2% (32 of 211 listings disclosed compensation). That is among the lowest transparency rates in physician recruitment, and it creates a candidate pipeline problem. Orthopedic surgeons are highly compensated, highly mobile, and highly selective. Without salary data, your listing is invisible to the top quartile of candidates who are comparing offers in real time.
Volume-pay misalignments are significant. Florida posted 10 listings but disclosed compensation of just $450,000, well below the national average. Kentucky posted 16 listings with zero salary data. Maine and New Mexico each posted 9 listings, also with zero disclosed pay. If you are recruiting in these states, you will need to lead with lifestyle, partnership track, subspecialty focus, or surgical volume—because you are not leading with compensation, either by choice or by competitive disadvantage.
Missouri and Iowa are pricing in scarcity, and it is working. Cape Girardeau is not a major metro, but it is offering $850,000 to $890,000. That is a 47% premium over the national average low, and it reflects a market that understands what it takes to recruit a high-demand specialist to a non-coastal, non-urban setting. If you are competing with these markets, your compensation package is the opening argument, not the footnote.
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What’s Driving the Numbers
Underserved markets are pricing in scarcity, and the premium is substantial.
Missouri and Iowa are offering $850,000-plus—well above the national average—and both are doing so in markets that would traditionally be considered secondary or tertiary. This is not an anomaly. It is a pricing strategy. Rural and underserved markets cannot compete on prestige, infrastructure, or proximity to academic centers, so they are competing on cash. The strategy works because Orthopedics is a procedural specialty with high revenue potential and because the cost of an unfilled position exceeds the cost of a premium salary. Expect this trend to continue as long as supply remains constrained.
High-volume states are not uniformly high-pay states, and that creates a recruiter problem.
New York posted 25 listings and paid above the national average. Florida posted 10 listings and paid $129,000 below the national average. Kentucky posted 16 listings and disclosed nothing. Volume signals demand, but it does not signal competitiveness. In Florida and Kentucky, recruiters will need to identify and articulate non-financial value propositions—partnership tracks, surgical autonomy, subspecialty case mix—or risk losing candidates to states that are willing to publish a number and let it speak for itself.
The $625,000 spread between floor and ceiling suggests that scope, setting, and subspecialty are driving differentiation.
A $350,000 position and a $975,000 position do not reflect the same job with different zip codes. They reflect different procedural volumes, different payer mixes, different call responsibilities, and different partnership structures. The data does not specify which listings are trauma-focused, joint replacement-focused, or sports medicine-focused, but the spread implies that those distinctions matter. Physicians evaluating offers should be scrutinizing scope, not just salary. A $400,000 position with low call burden and high quality of life may outperform a $700,000 position with 24/7 trauma coverage and no partnership path.
Low transparency is suppressing candidate engagement, and it is a solvable problem.
Only 15.2% of listings disclosed salary data. That means 84.8% of listings are asking candidates to express interest, submit a CV, and enter a negotiation without knowing whether the opportunity is worth their time. In a specialty where the national average exceeds $600,000 and the top quartile exceeds $700,000, that is not a sustainable recruitment strategy. The listings that disclosed salary data are more likely to generate qualified interest, more likely to close candidates quickly, and more likely to avoid the reputational damage that comes from wasting a candidate’s time with a lowball offer in round three.
The Bottom Line
The Orthopedics job market is robust, well-distributed, and wildly unequal. There are 211 opportunities across 41 states, but only a handful are offering the kind of compensation that reflects the specialty’s revenue potential and the candidate’s bargaining power. Missouri and Iowa are paying $850,000-plus in secondary markets. Maryland and Vermont are paying $350,000 to $400,000 in markets with comparable cost structures. The gap is not explained by geography alone—it is explained by strategy, scarcity, and whether the employer is willing to pay for the position to be filled.
You can make $350,000 fixing bones, or you can make $975,000 fixing bones. The bones are the same.
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Salary data based on 32 listings with disclosed compensation. Figures may reflect part-time or specialized roles. This report is informational and should not replace professional judgment or financial planning.
