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Nursing Assistants vs Nurse Practitioners

Side-by-side · O*NET · BLS · AI-exposure research · Anthropic Economic Index

A factual, source-backed comparison of Nursing Assistants and Nurse Practitioners on the dimensions both occupations carry. Every figure is a position within an independent published dataset — not a verdict on which job is better, safer, or more “future-proof.”

Nursing Assistants Nurse Practitioners
Median pay · BLS OEWS
$39,530
$129,210
Employment · BLS OEWS
1,388,430
307,390
AI exposure (percentile) · task overlap, not automation
5th pct
47th pct

At a glance

Dimension Nursing Assistants Nurse Practitioners
Median pay $39,530 $129,210
Employment 1,388,430 307,390
Employment outlook (2024–34) · BLS projection About average (+2.3%) Growing fast (+40.1%)
Annual openings · BLS projection 204,100 29,500
Typical education · O*NET Most occupations in this zone require training in vocational schools, related on-the-job experience, or an associate's degree. Most of these occupations require graduate school. For example, they may require a master's degree, and some require a Ph.D., M.D., or J.D. (law degree).
AI exposure · published exposure studies Low · 5th pct Moderate · 47th pct
Global GenAI gradient · ILO ISCO-08 · via crosswalk — 47th pct · 25% of tasks
Observed AI use · Anthropic Economic Index — Augmentation-leaning (69.1%)
Mostly remote-capable · Dingel–Neiman — No

Pay and employment are BLS OEWS estimates; outlook and openings are BLS 2024–2034 projections; AI exposure and observed-use figures come from separate research and reflect exposure and usage, not predictions that either job will disappear. Compare like with like.

Skills

Shared: Service Orientation, Customer and Personal Service, Oral Comprehension, Problem Sensitivity, Oral Expression, Near Vision, Active Listening, Social Perceptiveness, Speech Recognition, English Language, Monitoring, Medicine and Dentistry, Reading Comprehension, Speaking, Critical Thinking, Coordination, Written Comprehension, Written Expression, Deductive Reasoning, Information Ordering, Education and Training, Therapy and Counseling, Inductive Reasoning, Category Flexibility, Speech Clarity, Psychology, Active Learning, Judgment and Decision Making, Time Management, Writing.

Specific to Nursing Assistants

  • Administration and Management
  • Static Strength
  • Public Safety and Security
  • Trunk Strength
  • Extent Flexibility
  • Arm-Hand Steadiness
  • Selective Attention
  • Stamina

Specific to Nurse Practitioners

  • Biology
  • Complex Problem Solving
  • Science
  • Sociology and Anthropology
  • Mathematics
  • Learning Strategies
  • Persuasion
  • Fluency of Ideas

Knowledge, skills & abilities O*NET rates as important for each occupation. “Shared” are common to both; the columns list what is distinctive to each (top by the order O*NET surfaces).

Tools & technology

Shared: Medical software , Spreadsheet software , Office suite software , Electronic mail software , Word processing software , Data base user interface and query software , Internet browser software .

Specific to Nursing Assistants

Specific to Nurse Practitioners

Full profiles

This page is a summary. See the complete source-backed profile for Nursing Assistants or Nurse Practitioners — tasks, the full skill graph, tools, work context, preparation, wages by percentile, industries, AI exposure and the AI work map.

More comparisons

Related occupations you can place side by side on the same sourced scale.

Sources for this page

Every figure above traces to a named public dataset and the exact release below — not hand-written opinion. See the full methodology for what each measure does and does not mean.

Data compiled June 2, 2026. Figures are estimates, not advice.

Cite this page
Plain

Singulariki. "Nursing Assistants vs Nurse Practitioners." Singulariki: a source-backed encyclopedia of work. Built from O*NET 30.3; BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) May 2024; BLS Employment Projections 2024–2034; Anthropic Economic Index v4 (2026-01-15) + v2 (2025-03-27); Microsoft “Working with AI” working-with-ai; “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130; AI Occupational Exposure (AIOE) Felten, Raj & Seamans; ILO / Gmyrek et al. GenAI exposure gradient 2025; IBS O*NET-SOC ↔ ISCO-08 occupation crosswalk 2022; Dingel & Neiman (2020) dingel-neiman-workathome. Accessed June 7, 2026. https://singulariki.com/compare/nursing-assistants-vs-nurse-practitioners

APA

Singulariki. (2026). Nursing Assistants vs Nurse Practitioners. Singulariki: a source-backed encyclopedia of work. Retrieved June 7, 2026, from https://singulariki.com/compare/nursing-assistants-vs-nurse-practitioners

BibTeX 
@misc{singulariki-nursing-assistants-vs-nurse-practitioners,
  title  = {Nursing Assistants vs Nurse Practitioners},
  author = {{Singulariki}},
  year   = {2026},
  note   = {O*NET 30.3; BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) May 2024; BLS Employment Projections 2024–2034; Anthropic Economic Index v4 (2026-01-15) + v2 (2025-03-27); Microsoft “Working with AI” working-with-ai; “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130; AI Occupational Exposure (AIOE) Felten, Raj & Seamans; ILO / Gmyrek et al. GenAI exposure gradient 2025; IBS O*NET-SOC ↔ ISCO-08 occupation crosswalk 2022; Dingel & Neiman (2020) dingel-neiman-workathome. Accessed June 7, 2026},
  url    = {https://singulariki.com/compare/nursing-assistants-vs-nurse-practitioners}
}

Citations name the underlying public dataset releases — they reflect what this page is built from, not just the URL.