As the nation’s largest software and AI-powered career marketplace for permanent healthcare workers, the Incredible Health team is proud to unveil our 6th Annual State of U.S. Nurses & Technicians Report. This year’s report marks a transformative milestone in our vision and mission to help healthcare professionals live better lives and find and do their best work. For the first time, our insights draw from over one million healthcare worker voices across the country, expanded to include both nurses and technicians, providing the most comprehensive, data-driven portrait of the workforce that powers our hospitals, surgery centers, and home health organizations.
This report is more than just numbers—it’s a call to action. Nurses and technicians represent the majority of U.S. healthcare workers. Their experiences, challenges, and aspirations are key inputs that shape and guide how we design the future of care. When we ask what’s working in healthcare—and what isn’t—it’s their insight that helps us shape a better, more sustainable system.
The 2025 report outlines critical challenges in staffing, compensation, and mental health but also illuminates a path forward grounded in innovation and opportunity.
A workforce at a crossroads: Technicians and technologists sound the alarm
Technicians and technologists make up over 30% of the clinical workforce. They’re essential from the operating room to imaging services to the lab but they’re under unprecedented strain. Their stories echo the early warning signs of the 2021 nurse staffing crisis—rising demands at work, unclear career progression, personal financial strain, and burnout. Among the most urgent findings:
- 71% of technicians say they are not fairly compensated. 32% say a 6–10% raise would help them feel adequately paid.
- Only a quarter (25%) of technicians rate their mental health as “very good.”
- Nearly half (48%) report they can barely meet their basic financial needs, and 76% say it’s harder to find a job than in past years.
- Among surgical technologists, 68% report increased demand for surgical care—a signal that technician workloads will continue to rise without sufficient staffing.
As surgical demand and imaging needs grow, and hiring conditions tighten, our healthcare system needs to respond now in order to retain these skilled professionals and acknowledge the critical role they play in delivering safe, high-quality care.
Navigating headwinds: Political & economic pressures on the front lines
Today’s healthcare professionals are contending with mounting external pressures from cost-of-living challenges to national policy uncertainty in addition to navigating rising patient demand and workloads. These pressures are not just concerns. They are actively influencing how healthcare professionals think about their careers and future:
- 88% of nurses and technicians anticipate that potential Medicaid and Medicare cuts will negatively impact health systems.
- 63% of nurses believe the current political environment will affect their job or workplace.
- 55% of nurses and 78% of technicians say the housing market and interest rates have limited their ability to consider roles in other cities.
- 66% of nurses and technicians overall report that the macroeconomic climate has influenced their career choices or trajectory..
These are not just workforce challenges. They are care delivery challenges. As innovators and healthcare leaders, it is our collective responsibility to address the broader economic and policy conditions shaping the futures of our healthcare workforce.
Embracing innovation: AI emerges as a partner in care
Amid the challenges, we’re also seeing a moment of incredible promise. Healthcare workers are growing more comfortable with AI and are eager to learn more about it. Belief in AI’s potential to improve workflows and reduce administrative burden is growing fast, with only 38% of nurses now seeing AI as a threat compared to 64% last year. The shift is clear:
- 85% of nurses want more training in how to use AI.
- Nurses are most optimistic about AI’s potential to: Save time on administrative tasks (40%), increase process efficiency (36%), and improve technical training (34%)
As we look toward the future, this openness offers a hopeful mandate for innovation led by collaboration with the healthcare workforce.
The time to act is now
This report offers healthcare leaders a generational opportunity: to redesign the systems that support our healthcare workforce around the people who power it. It’s not just about recruitment or retention. It’s about creating thriving environments where healthcare workers feel valued, supported, and empowered to focus on what matters most: delivering exceptional care.
The future of healthcare will be defined by how we support the people who deliver it. There is a way forward and it’s grounded in listening closely, acting boldly, and using the technology and tools available to us. That includes investing in career progression, fair and transparent compensation, building in real flexibility, and strengthening mental health support. Also encouraging lifelong learning, particularly around new innovations like AI is key.
The time to lead is now. Together, we can build a healthcare system that meets the growing demands of tomorrow while supporting the healthcare workers who make it all possible today.
As the largest software and AI-enabled career marketplace for healthcare workers, Incredible Health is free to all nurses and technicians and helps them plan and manage their careers. Over 1 million US nurses and thousands of technicians use the platform to land permanent roles across 1,500 acute and non-acute employers, access free resources and tools, and receive free one-on-one support from coaches regarding career decisions. The marketplace helps hospitals, home health organizations, and ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) quickly hire and retain top, permanent healthcare workers while saving millions per year per facility in temporary staff, overtime, and HR costs, and growing and expanding their organizations.
You can download the visual report that includes more data from 2025’s 6th Annual State of U.S. Nurses & Technicians Report here.
If you’re a nurse or technician looking to take control of your career and access Incredible Health’s suite of services for free, support is available here.
If you’re a healthcare leader looking for a better way to hire permanent nurse and technician talent, find out more here.
Methodology
We analyzed data from more than 1,000,000 Incredible Health nurses and technicians as of April 2025. We also surveyed over 2,300 nurses and over 150 technicians in the United States in April 2025.
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