Registered Nurses hiring difficulty in Salt Lake City, UT
Salt Lake City, UT scores 3.8 out of 10 for Registered Nurses, in the standard band. That is a quieter market on this measure than the hard band, which starts at 7.0. BLS projects 180.8 thousand openings a year for this occupation on a 3465.4 thousand employment base in 2025, or 5.2 percent, and employment growth of 5.6 percent from 2025 to 2035. Those two national figures are the same in every metro for this occupation. This metro has fewer of these workers than the national mix. The location quotient is 0.78 (BLS OEWS, May 2025). OEWS counts 17.034 of these jobs per 1,000 jobs in the metro. That count is shown here and is not a score input. The metro median is $85,890 a year, under the U.S. median of $97,550 and within 3 percent of the Utah median of $84,600 (BLS OEWS, May 2025). In Utah, the December 2025 job openings rate for all industries, statewide, was 3.5%, below the U.S. rate of 4.0% that same month. The statewide hiring pace was 31.4 days, shorter than the U.S. pace of 37.8 days (BLS JOLTS, total nonfarm). OEWS counts 14,070 jobs in this occupation in the metro (May 2025). No workplace count is shown for Salt Lake City. The provider-registry extract was built from Oklahoma and Texas city queries and stops at those metros. This set of 80 metros places Salt Lake City at rank 48 for healthcare employment in practitioner and support occupations.
Demand from national projections, the local pay premium, and a supply modifier. How this score is built
Key numbers
JOLTS on this page is a statewide, all-industry figure. It is the same number for every role in Utah. It is a December 2025 print, matched to the U.S. total-nonfarm print for that month.
Annual pay
Metro employment 14,070 (BLS OEWS, May 2025). Location quotient 0.78. Jobs per 1,000 in the metro: 17.034. Metro area: Salt Lake City-Murray, UT.
| Percentile | Metro | UT | U.S. |
|---|---|---|---|
| 25th | $80,900 | $80,050 | $80,330 |
| Median | $85,890 | $84,600 | $97,550 |
| 75th | $105,550 | $105,130 | $112,350 |
Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. Unpublished cells stay blank here.
Score components
| Component | Weight | Input | Score | Reading |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Projected openings | 19.6% | 5.2% | 5.2 | Annual projected openings divided by 2025 employment, 180.8 thousand openings on a 3465.4 thousand base. BLS Employment Projections, 2025–2035. Higher rate, higher component. Scaled across the 20 occupations on this grid that have a projection. |
| Projected growth | 23.9% | 5.6% | 5.8 | Percent change in employment from 2025 to 2035. Same national figure in every metro. Higher growth, higher component. |
| Pay versus U.S. median | 43.5% | 0.88× | 1.4 | Metro median $85,890 divided by the U.S. median $97,550 for this occupation. Higher ratio, higher component. Ranked among the 1,733 scored pages. |
| Location quotient | 8.7% | 0.78 | 8.1 | Fewer of these workers than the national mix. BLS OEWS, May 2025. Lower quotient, higher component, and only as a modifier. Ranked among the 1,733 scored pages. |
| Statewide labor market | 4.3% | 3.5% · 31.4 days | 1.9 | Mean of two ranks among 51 states and DC: the December 2025 total-nonfarm openings rate (component 2.0) and the hiring pace (component 1.8). Same number for every role in Utah. |
Shown score 3.8 is the weighted average, rounded half up to one decimal. When this occupation is not a primary-care, dental, or mental-health match, the shortage weight is left out and the other weights are scaled to 100 percent. Full method
Closest metros for Registered Nurses
Straight-line miles between principal-city coordinates in the Census 2024 Gazetteer place file used by this site.
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