Kentucky and Idaho are paying psychiatrists $400,000 per year. North Dakota is paying $60,000. The same specialty, the same credential, a 567% compensation gap. The national Psychiatry job market currently shows 471 active listings spanning 46 states, with 148 positions disclosing salary data. The full range runs from $60,000 to $550,000 annually, though the floor is almost certainly a data artifact (part-time work, fellowship stipends, or someone’s very creative interpretation of competitive pay). Strip out the noise and the national average salary range sits between $294,975 and $336,366. What the data shows: demand is everywhere, transparency is selective, and geography determines your income more than you might expect.
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The Psychiatry Job Market at a Glance

471 total listings. 148 with salary data. Full range: $60,000 to $550,000. Average range: $294,975 to $336,366.

The spread is wide but interpretable. The $60,000 floor is an outlier tied to North Dakota and likely reflects part-time or non-clinical work. Remove that and the practical floor rises to the mid-$200,000s. The ceiling of $550,000 appears in isolated listings and may reflect leadership roles, private practice buy-ins, or scarcity premiums in underserved markets. Most positions cluster between $270,000 and $370,000, a tight enough band to suggest that Psychiatry compensation has achieved something resembling price discovery. The national average reflects a mature market where demand is high, supply is still catching up, and pay has standardized across much of the country. That said, the top decile earns $100,000+ more than the median, and location is the primary variable.

States represented:

• Alabama
• Alaska
• Arizona
• Arkansas
• California
• Colorado
• Connecticut
• Delaware
• Florida
• Georgia
• Hawaii
• Idaho
• Illinois
• Indiana
• Iowa
• Kansas
• Kentucky
• Louisiana
• Maine
• Maryland
• Massachusetts
• Michigan
• Minnesota
• Mississippi
• Missouri
• Nebraska
• Nevada
• New Hampshire
• New Jersey
• New Mexico
• New York
• North Carolina
• North Dakota
• Ohio
• Oklahoma
• Oregon
• Pennsylvania
• South Carolina
• South Dakota
• Tennessee
• Texas
• Utah
• Virginia
• Washington
• West Virginia
• Wisconsin

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How States Stack Up

Overperformers: Kentucky: $400,000 flat, one listing, and the single highest average in the dataset. Idaho: $400,000 flat, also one listing, tied for the top. Delaware: $350,000 to $400,000, a strong range from a single disclosed position in a state that rarely makes headlines for physician pay. California: $306,314 to $380,901 across 41 salary-disclosed listings, proving that volume and premium pay can coexist (if you’re willing to pay $3,000/month for a one-bedroom). Massachusetts: $330,000 to $350,000, two listings, and a reminder that academic medicine hubs can still compete on salary when they want to. Nevada: $330,000 flat, one listing, no state income tax, and a cost of living that makes this functionally equivalent to $400,000 in Brooklyn. Ohio: $319,083 to $342,494 across four listings, quietly outperforming its Rust Belt reputation.

Near-average performers: Hawaii: $306,667 to $316,667, three listings, and the implicit understanding that you’re being paid partly in ocean views and partly in the highest cost of living in the nation. Alabama: $308,333 to $313,333, three listings, and a tight range that suggests consistency if not upside. Washington: $309,000 to $347,000, two listings, and Seattle-area demand pushing the high end up. Illinois: $299,333 to $323,667 across 15 listings, a high-volume state that pays exactly what you’d expect. Minnesota: $297,583 to $322,167 across six listings, the Midwest mean in both senses of the term. Iowa: $300,000 flat, one listing. Connecticut: $293,900 to $313,900 across 10 listings, a high-volume state with thoroughly average pay. Missouri: $285,000 to $325,000, two listings. New Jersey: $285,000 to $340,000, two listings with a wide internal spread. Colorado: $300,000 flat, one listing.

Underperformers: New York: $286,063 to $319,276 across 41 listings, tied for the highest job volume in the country and paying below the national average (the rent is the compensation, apparently). Maryland: $273,000 to $318,000 across five listings, a below-average range for a state with major academic medical centers and high regional costs. Pennsylvania: $262,500 to $331,000 across four listings, the third-highest volume state by job count and one of the lowest average floors in the dataset. North Dakota: $60,000 flat across two listings, an average so low it can only reflect part-time or trainee work, but it’s in the data and it drags the state to the bottom of the rankings.

Volume leaders: California and New York are tied at 55 listings each, representing the two largest Psychiatry job markets in the country. Pennsylvania posts 25 listings, Illinois 20, and Connecticut and North Carolina 18 each. The volume-pay relationship is inconsistent. California combines the highest job count with above-average pay. New York combines the highest job count with below-average pay. Pennsylvania posts the third-most jobs and one of the lowest salary floors. North Carolina, despite 18 listings, disclosed zero salaries. High volume does not guarantee high pay, and in some cases it correlates with the opposite.
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What This Means If You’re a Physician

If your priority is maximum compensation: Kentucky and Idaho are tied at $400,000, each with one disclosed listing. Delaware follows at $350,000 to $400,000. These are low-volume markets, so optionality is limited, but if you’re chasing the highest number on the offer letter, this is where it lives. The highest single listing identified is in Kentucky at $400,000 (scope and city details were not provided in the raw data, but the number speaks for itself).

If your priority is maximum optionality: California and New York each offer 55 listings, the largest job markets in the country. California pays $306,314 to $380,901 on average, well above the national mean. New York pays $286,063 to $319,276, below the national mean. If you want options and are willing to accept below-average pay, New York delivers. If you want options and above-average pay, California is the only high-volume market that offers both.

If your priority is balance: Ohio ($319,083 to $342,494), Washington ($309,000 to $347,000), and Illinois ($299,333 to $323,667) offer a combination of reasonable job counts, near-average or above-average pay, and cost-of-living profiles that don’t require a second mortgage to afford groceries. Hawaii ($306,667 to $316,667) offers balance only if you define balance as “lower nominal pay but you live in Hawaii.”

Cost-of-living mismatches: California’s $306,314 to $380,901 range is above the national average, but after state taxes and housing costs, the purchasing power is closer to the national median. New York’s $286,063 to $319,276 is below the national average before adjusting for cost of living, and well below it after. Maryland and Pennsylvania both post below-average pay in states with above-average costs in their major metros. Meanwhile, Kentucky, Idaho, and Delaware are offering top-tier compensation in states with significantly lower costs, creating a rare alignment of nominal and real income.
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What This Means If You’re a Recruiter

Salary transparency rate: 148 listings with disclosed compensation out of 471 total listings equals 31.4%. Fewer than one in three Psychiatry job postings include salary data, which means the majority of your candidate pipeline is being asked to apply blind. In a specialty where demand consistently outpaces supply and physicians have leverage, this is a friction point. Candidates are comparison shopping, and if your listing doesn’t include a number, they’re moving on to one that does.

Candidate pipeline implications: California and New York dominate volume but show opposite compensation strategies. California pairs high volume with above-average pay and strong transparency (41 of 55 listings include salary data). New York pairs high volume with below-average pay and similarly strong transparency (41 of 55 listings). Pennsylvania posts 25 jobs but discloses salary in only four, a 16% transparency rate that suggests either extreme variability in offer structure or a reluctance to compete on published numbers. North Carolina, Florida, Texas, Wisconsin, Indiana, and Arizona combine for 80 listings and zero disclosed salaries. If you’re recruiting in these states, you’re competing on reputation, lifestyle, and speed, because you’re not competing on posted compensation.

Volume-pay misalignments: New York and Pennsylvania are both high-volume, below-average-pay markets, which means recruiters in these states will need to lead with location, institutional brand, or non-monetary benefits. North Carolina posts 18 jobs with zero salary data, so the pitch is entirely qualitative. Florida, Texas, and Arizona show similar patterns. In contrast, California proves that high volume and high pay can coexist if the market supports it. For states where volume and pay are misaligned, the recruiting strategy must shift from compensation to mission, culture, and geography.
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What’s Driving the Numbers

Geography commands a larger premium than scope or specialization. The gap between Kentucky ($400,000) and North Dakota ($60,000) is not explained by clinical differences. It’s explained by market scarcity, state funding models, and the fact that some markets have to pay more to attract anyone at all. The highest-paying states in this dataset are low-volume markets where demand is acute and supply is nearly nonexistent. The lowest-paying states are either extreme outliers (North Dakota) or high-volume markets where competition among employers has somehow failed to drive wages up (New York, Pennsylvania). Psychiatry pay is less about what you do and more about where you do it.

Part-time roles and data artifacts distort the floor but not the market. North Dakota’s $60,000 average pulls the national range downward but reflects only two listings and almost certainly represents part-time or fellowship work. Strip it out and the floor rises to Pennsylvania’s $262,500, which is still low but at least plausible for full-time clinical work. The lesson: raw salary ranges are noisy, and the floor is often an outlier. The actionable range for full-time Psychiatry positions is $270,000 to $370,000, with the top decile reaching $400,000+ in scarcity markets.

High volume does not correlate with high pay, and in some cases it correlates with the opposite. California is the exception: 55 listings, above-average pay, high transparency. New York is the rule: 55 listings, below-average pay, high transparency. Pennsylvania is the cautionary tale: 25 listings, below-average pay, low transparency. The volume-pay relationship in Psychiatry is broken, and it suggests that employers in high-volume markets believe they can attract talent through optionality and brand rather than compensation. Whether that belief is correct depends on how long candidates are willing to wait for a number.

Transparency is inconsistent and regionally clustered. California, New York, Illinois, and Connecticut all show transparency rates above 50%. Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Florida, Texas, and Arizona show transparency rates at or near zero. This is not a national trend; it’s a state-level and employer-level choice. States with strong transparency tend to have more competitive pay and tighter salary bands. States with low transparency tend to have wider variability and more negotiation-dependent offers. For physicians, this means the states that publish numbers are also the states where the numbers are more predictable. For recruiters, this means the states that don’t publish numbers are the states where you’re losing candidates to competitors who do.

The Bottom Line

The Psychiatry job market is large, liquid, and geographically polarized. Demand is strong across the country, but compensation is highest in low-volume states where scarcity drives bidding wars and lowest in high-volume states where employers assume brand and location will do the work that salary used to do. Transparency is inconsistent, with fewer than one in three listings disclosing pay, and the states that do disclose tend to pay better and more predictably. For physicians, the opportunity set is wide, but the highest-paying roles require either geographic flexibility or a willingness to move to markets that most people are trying to leave. For recruiters, the challenge is clear: if you’re not publishing salary data in a specialty where everyone else is, you’re not competing.

There is a lot of money available for helping people feel better about feeling things, but only if you’re willing to move to Kentucky.
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Salary data based on 148 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.