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Registered Nurses vs Physician Assistants

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

A factual, source-backed comparison of Registered Nurses and Physician Assistants 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.”

Registered Nurses Physician Assistants
Median pay · BLS OEWS
$93,600
$133,260
Employment · BLS OEWS
3,282,010
155,540
AI exposure (percentile) · task overlap, not automation
39th pct
11th pct

At a glance

Dimension Registered Nurses Physician Assistants
Median pay $93,600 $133,260
Employment 3,282,010 155,540
Employment outlook (2024–34) · BLS projection About average (+4.9%) Growing fast (+20.4%)
Annual openings · BLS projection 189,100 12,000
Typical education · O*NET Most of these occupations require a four-year bachelor's degree, but some do not. 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 Moderate · 39th pct Low · 11th pct
Global GenAI gradient · ILO ISCO-08 · via crosswalk 47th pct · 25% of tasks 43rd pct · 23% of tasks
Observed AI use · Anthropic Economic Index Augmentation-leaning (66.7%) Augmentation-leaning (73.1%)
Mostly remote-capable · Dingel–Neiman No 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: Psychology, Customer and Personal Service, Medicine and Dentistry, English Language, Social Perceptiveness, Problem Sensitivity, Deductive Reasoning, Active Listening, Speaking, Critical Thinking, Coordination, Service Orientation, Oral Comprehension, Written Comprehension, Oral Expression, Inductive Reasoning, Reading Comprehension, Judgment and Decision Making, Information Ordering, Near Vision, Speech Clarity, Writing, Monitoring, Written Expression, Speech Recognition, Active Learning, Complex Problem Solving, Mathematics, Therapy and Counseling, Category Flexibility, Flexibility of Closure, Education and Training, Time Management.

Specific to Registered Nurses

  • Administrative
  • Administration and Management
  • Learning Strategies
  • Instructing
  • Fluency of Ideas
  • Memorization
  • Speed of Closure

Specific to Physician Assistants

  • Biology
  • Science
  • Sociology and Anthropology
  • Computers and Electronics
  • Chemistry
  • Persuasion
  • Systems Evaluation

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 , Word processing software , Spreadsheet software , Office suite software , Electronic mail software , Video conferencing software .

Specific to Registered Nurses

Specific to Physician Assistants

Full profiles

This page is a summary. See the complete source-backed profile for Registered Nurses or Physician Assistants — 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. "Registered Nurses vs Physician Assistants." 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; Frey & Osborne (2013) frey-osborne-automation; Dingel & Neiman (2020) dingel-neiman-workathome. Accessed June 7, 2026. https://singulariki.com/compare/registered-nurses-vs-physician-assistants

APA

Singulariki. (2026). Registered Nurses vs Physician Assistants. Singulariki: a source-backed encyclopedia of work. Retrieved June 7, 2026, from https://singulariki.com/compare/registered-nurses-vs-physician-assistants

BibTeX 
@misc{singulariki-registered-nurses-vs-physician-assistants,
  title  = {Registered Nurses vs Physician Assistants},
  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; Frey & Osborne (2013) frey-osborne-automation; Dingel & Neiman (2020) dingel-neiman-workathome. Accessed June 7, 2026},
  url    = {https://singulariki.com/compare/registered-nurses-vs-physician-assistants}
}

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