Highest Paying Jobs For Nurses In Nigeria (2024)
This Article Provides comprehensive details about the Highest Paying Jobs For Nurses In Nigeria. It is remarkable that as a Nurse you have a wide range of scope of practice. You can work as a nurse at the bedside, as a researcher, an educator, a nurse practitioner, the list is inexhaustible but you might be met with a rude shock when you join the workforce and realize that the salary you will be paid is not up to your expectation or the investment you put into studying to become a Nurse.
It is common knowledge that nursing is a demanding profession coupled with huge investment being put into studying to become a professional, so your anticipation of the amount of money you will earn might be high compared to the reality of what you will be paid when you start working as a Nurse especially in Nigeria as Nigeria is among the list of countries paying their nurses the lowest salary.
Highest Paying Jobs For Nurses In Nigeria
The highest you can earn depends on many factors;
- Level of Experience
- Qualification
- Specialty
- Organization
- Allowances
- Other Factors
We will look into these areas in detail below;
Level of Experience
As a newly qualified Nurse, the salary you will receive will be lower than someone with years of experience as the higher your level of experience, the more you are paid.
Now let’s look into how much you can earn based on your level of experience.
If you have less than two years of experience, you can receive an average salary of approximately 90,000+ NGN per month.
If your experience level is between two and five years you can earn an average of 130,000 NGN per month.
While someone with an experience level between five and ten years will be paid an average salary of 170,000+ NGN monthly.
Nurses with experience between ten and fifteen years are paid an equivalent of 200,000+ NGN per month.
If your experience level is between fifteen and twenty years, then you can expect to earn an average wage of 220,000 NGN monthly.
A Nurse with a level of experience above twenty years goes home with an average of 230,000+ NGN per month.
The above are average salary and is again dependent on other factors that will be explained subsequently.
Level of Qualification
The fact that you get paid more when you have higher qualifications is known to everyone and it is not only applicable to the nursing profession, therefore, the higher your level of academic qualification, the higher you are compensated.
Though it is expensive to gain an additional qualification, the return on your educational investment is worth it when you earn higher with your new level of qualification than the former one.
On average, if you have a Bachelor’s degree, you can be paid between 150,000N NGN and above, this again pivots on the institution and other factors, for example, a Nurse with a Bachelor’s degree and some years of experience will receive more than a nurse with just a general nursing (RN) qualification and the same years of experience.
And with a Master’s Degree or other advanced qualification, the pay is even more impressive.
Area of Specialty
When you specialize as a Nurse, you can earn more than just being a General Nurse, and the salary you get paid also differs based on your specialty as some area of specialty is more lucrative than others.
You can be compensated more if you are a nurse researcher, nurse administrator, pediatric nurse, orthopedic nurse, nurse practitioner, nurse educator, and others.
This again banks on the scope of practice and the salary scale made available in the country for different specialties.
Organization
Different institutions have their pay scale for their employees, the greater you now receive depends on the salary scale of that particular organization whether private or government.
In Nigeria, if you work in a government institution, you get to earn better, whilst most private hospitals pay less than the government hospitals except the few private ones that serve the elites in the society.
Though Nurses in government institutions earn more than those in private hospitals, the salary scale also differs within the government institutions, for example, those who work in federal institutions receive more than those at the state level.
For Nurses working in government institutions in Nigeria, their salary scale is based on two main standards: Consolidated Health Salary Structure (CONHESS) which is for hospitals, and Consolidated University Academic structure (CONAUSS) for Nurses in the academic sector. Therefore, the amount you will receive will be according to this, unlike the private hospitals that have no fixed structure and only pay what they deem fit.
Some state pay nurses, for example, a fresh graduate from the school of nursing on level 07 which is from 53,000 – 70,000 NGN while private hospital pays 45,000– 60,000 NGN.
Aside from that, it is also believed that nurses who work in NGOs, attached military hospitals, home care facilities, companies, and industries as occupational health nurses earn more than their counterparts in other institutions.
For NGOs, the amount you earn depends on the type of organization whether local, national, or international, and the services they render, your role and qualification is also a determinant. International NGOs like MSF Medicine San Frontier pay nurses on a level 5 scale with a net salary of 267,130 NGN and a standard gross salary of 280,592 NGN, this pay can even go up to 500,00 NGN depending on the organization while national NGOs pay around 80,000 plus NGN.
In military hospitals, what you earn depends on your rank and if you have no rank, you earn a little higher than staff in FMC (federal medical centers) which is about 150,000-200,000 NGN and if you are a ranking officer, you earn way above that.
As an occupational health nurse, the amount of salary you receive depends on your employment contract, the type of organization whether national or international, and their interests and if you have an additional qualification or certifications if required, you can earn between 80,000 NGN and above.
If you work in home care facilities, you can earn between 80,000-120,000 NGN.
Allowances
As a healthcare professional, you are entitled to different allowances and bonuses as incentives such as hazard allowance, call duty allowance, shift duty allowance, teaching allowance, etc. though this again depends on the institution and the various incentives package made available for their employees.
Others
You can also do some other things that can increase your income, such as owning a private healthcare facility and other side gigs such as training, coaching, writing, blogging, and so on.
HOW CAN YOU GET PAID MORE?
After all, these have been explained, you might have asked yourself the question, “How can I get paid more?”
Do you want to earn a higher salary and have a better Job?
You will get to know some of the ways you earn more as a Nurse below;
Read on as you will find these useful.
Get Certified
Enroll for additional certification with online courses in Nursing, there are lots of platforms that have made provision for this, some are even free, examples are
Coursera
Udemy
https://openwho.org/
Allison.com and so on, you can check this website and start from there.
Learn New Skills
Skills like writing, public speaking, training, coaching, blogging, and social media influencers/managers are highly in demand and being embraced by Nurses in this era. They have found a way to connect their interests with the profession, being a nurse is a leverage for them to do this as it is a form of credibility in society.
There are also different nurses equipping others with these skills and it is a good way to learn these, other online platforms are catering to this that can be of help too.
Though the skills mentioned here are broader in scope you might need to narrow them down to what you exactly want for example as a blogger, what niche do you want to focus on, a blog like this that is focused on bringing you updates regarding nursing profession is another example, hence the reason I mentioned the need for you to be specific.
Get Additional Qualification
You’ve seen earlier that nurses with advanced qualifications and areas of specialty get to earn more than those that do not have, therefore to earn extra, you can pursue an advanced qualification or specialize as a nurse to earn better.
Own Your Own Home/Healthcare Facility
You have the privilege of serving society by building your health care facility, and you get to earn additional and even help people with your service, though there are processes involved and of course funds you can do your research to consider if it’s a worthy cause.
Read Also: How To Set Up A Nursing Home In Nigeria – Full Guide
Network
It is often said that your network is your NETWORTH. Network and meet with people who can recommend you for a well-paying higher role you might have missed if you are unaware of it.
Conclusion
While it is essential to make money to meet your basic human needs and even live a luxurious life, you should take into consideration your future career prospects, so that you do not keep jumping from one thing to another just because you can earn additionally from it.
Think about how you can amass more and see how everything is connected you the future scope of your practice, to gain leverage as a Nurse even when you get international opportunities.
You can pursue an additional qualification in a specialty, and explore how you can advance in that aspect, the things you can do, or side skills you can add related to that. For example, you can work as a pediatric nurse, attain an advanced qualification like a pediatric nurse practitioner, have a blog that shares information regarding children, mentor young nurses on career pathways in Nursing, etc.
This way, you have a mapped-out path that will give you an edge as an authority in that field instead of jumping from one aspect to the other, and at the end of the day, you are a jack of everything but a master of none.
If you think this post can be helpful to somebody else, please share it using the buttons below!
