Somewhere in Missouri, a pediatrician is being offered $382,500 to look at ear infections. Somewhere in Georgia, another pediatrician is being offered $121,020 to do the same job. Both listings are real. Both are current. The Pediatrics market in 2026 spans 572 active listings across more than 40 states, from California’s saturated coastline to a single opening each in Wyoming, Montana, and Alaska (someone, somewhere, will deliver a well-child visit in Juneau this year). The thesis is simple: Pediatrics pays what the local market can bear, and the local market is wildly inconsistent about what it can bear.
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The Pediatrics Job Market at a Glance

Total listings: 572
Listings with disclosed salary: 143
Full national salary range: $121,020 to $490,000
National average salary range: $225,472 to $267,435

The spread here is the story. A quarter-million dollars separates the floor from the ceiling, and the average band is only about $42,000 wide — which means most disclosed offers cluster in a fairly tight zone, with a small number of outliers stretching the extremes in both directions. Pediatrics is not Anesthesia. Nobody is quietly clearing seven figures for treating croup. But the ceiling is higher than the specialty’s reputation suggests, particularly in states nobody would pick on a coastal map.

States represented: California, Texas, Florida, Georgia, New York, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana, Missouri, Arkansas, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Maine, Vermont, Rhode Island, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Kansas, Alaska, and the Northern Mariana Islands.
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How States Stack Up

Overperformers:

• Missouri averages $382,500 flat — the highest in the country, on a very small sample.
• Washington averages $286,507 to $331,997 and pairs it with real volume (17 listings), the rare state that does both.
• Maryland averages $305,000 to $310,000, tight and generous.
• Oklahoma averages $305,000 flat across three disclosed listings.
• North Dakota averages $292,000 flat (Fargo pays; who knew).
• Arizona averages $244,000 to $293,000.
• Maine posts a single disclosed listing at $275,000 (lobster money).
• Wisconsin averages $270,400 to $280,800 on one data point.
• Minnesota averages $263,333 to $276,667.
• Colorado averages $198,964 to $276,540 — a wide, uneven band.

Near-average:

• Illinois averages $225,714 to $269,000, effectively the national midpoint.
• Ohio averages $225,000 to $250,000, quietly reasonable.
• California averages $234,455 to $283,656 — competitive, and the only high-volume state that also pays competitively.
• Connecticut averages $203,000 to $260,000.
• New York averages $195,514 to $257,313 (which, in Manhattan, is a rounding error on rent).
• Delaware posts one listing at $200,000 to $230,000.
• Nevada averages $190,000 to $230,000.
• Hawaii averages $203,000 to $226,000 (paradise tax applies).

Underperformers:

• Georgia’s lone disclosed listing runs $121,020 to $300,000 — the widest and lowest floor in the country.
• Florida averages $175,000 to $250,000 despite 25 openings.
• Texas averages $190,000 to $220,000 across 33 openings (yes, really).
• Louisiana averages $180,000 to $201,667.
• New Jersey averages $185,000 to $199,444 (see: cost of living, weep).
• Massachusetts averages $186,929 to $212,357.

Volume leaders: California (89), Texas (33), New York (29), Georgia (27), Florida (25), Illinois (24), Pennsylvania (19), Oklahoma (18), Washington (17), Oregon (17), Minnesota (16). Texas, Florida, and Georgia post big volume at below-average pay. Missouri and North Dakota post the opposite.
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What This Means If You’re a Physician

If your priority is maximum compensation: Missouri, Washington, Maryland, and Oklahoma are your list. The single highest-paying listing on the board is a full-time Pediatrics role in Patterson, CA through The Inline Group at $240,000 to $316,000 — a California posting doing California things. Missouri’s $382,500 average is higher, but it’s a thinner market with fewer shots on goal.

If your priority is maximum optionality: California (89 listings), Texas (33), and New York (29) give you the most doors to knock on. California is the only one that also pays.

If your priority is balance: Washington state is the answer nobody asks for but everybody should. Seventeen listings, an average band north of $286,000, and no state income tax. Minnesota and Illinois are the safer, more central alternatives.

Watch the cost-of-living traps. New Jersey ($185,000–$199,444) and Massachusetts ($186,929–$212,357) are pediatric compensation deserts wearing zip codes that cost like beachfront.
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What This Means If You’re a Recruiter

Salary transparency rate: 143 of 572, or 25%. Three-quarters of Pediatrics listings disclose nothing. In a candidate market where physicians increasingly filter by disclosed pay, that is a self-inflicted pipeline wound. If your listing has no number, it is losing to the listing that does — even when your number is better.

The volume-pay misalignment is loud. Texas has 33 openings averaging $190,000 to $220,000. Florida has 25 openings averaging $175,000 to $250,000. Georgia has 27 openings and a floor of $121,020. Recruiters in those states cannot lead with compensation. They will need to lead with schedule, patient panel, loan repayment, signing bonuses, or lifestyle — because the raw number will not carry the pitch.
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What’s Driving the Numbers

Scope and leadership command a premium, quietly. The states topping the chart — Missouri, Maryland, Oklahoma, North Dakota — are not paying $300,000-plus for garden-variety outpatient Pediatrics. Small samples in these states almost certainly reflect subspecialty, medical directorships, or hospital-employed roles carrying administrative scope. The headline number is real; the “average pediatrician” reading it should adjust expectations accordingly.

Part-time and hourly roles distort the floor. A Premise Health listing in La Crosse, WI advertises $130 to $135 hourly, which annualizes to $270,400 to $280,800 at 2,080 hours — impressive on paper, but it’s a part-time posting. Georgia’s $121,020 floor almost certainly reflects the same phenomenon in reverse: a fractional role priced as an annual number. The floor is not the floor. The floor is a math artifact.

Underserved markets are pricing in scarcity, and it’s working. North Dakota, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Maine — none of them dense pediatric labor markets — are all clearing the national average by comfortable margins. When you can’t recruit on weather or nightlife, you recruit on the wire transfer.

The volume-pay relationship breaks decisively. In most specialties, high volume signals high demand signals high pay. In Pediatrics, high volume signals oversupply and downward wage pressure. Texas, Florida, and Georgia are the exhibits. California is the exception that proves the rule (a market so large it contains its own scarcity).

The Bottom Line

Pediatrics in 2026 is a specialty of quiet dispersion. The national average is narrow, the outliers are extreme, and geography matters more than credentials in setting the number on the offer letter. The states everyone wants to live in generally pay less. The states nobody talks about at conferences generally pay more. And three-quarters of listings still refuse to publish a salary at all, which is either strategic ambiguity or institutional inertia — the outcome is the same either way.

Pediatricians get paid to keep small humans alive, and the market has decided that’s worth somewhere between $121,020 and $490,000 depending largely on whether you’re willing to move to Fargo.
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Salary data based on 143 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.