Health and care
What does a Licensed Practical Nurse do?
Looking after people directly, often when they are at their worst.
What the day is like
- Indoors, under a roof.
- Tools, materials, your body.
- People all day.
- Right or wrong, to a standard.
- No two days alike.
- Answerable for your own work.
The facts
- Pay
- $64,400 a year, median
- Licensed Practical and Licensed Vocational Nurses, May 2025
- Usually needs
- Postsecondary nondegree award
- A year or two, often while earning something.
- Jobs
- +3% projected change in jobs, 2025-2035 projections
- Demand looks growing slowly
What is good about it
- No two days are the same, if that is what you want from a week.
- You answer for your own work rather than for other people, which suits more people than admit it.
- You can see what you did at the end of the day.
What people find hard about it
- Physical work with patients
- Shift patterns
- A ceiling on what you may decide
It is a faster route in than registered nursing, with less autonomy at the end of it.
Will machines take this job?
Hard for machines to take over. Notes and scheduling are automating. Being in the room with a frightened person is not.
How to find out whether it suits you
Shadow a practical nurse for a shift and ask what they can and cannot do.
Would this actually suit you?
CareerDNA works that out from what you choose rather than from what you say about yourself: two minutes of choosing between real jobs, a few puzzles, and some questions about what you are like. It is free, it saves as you go, and it will tell you plainly where the answer is thin.