ICU Nurse salary: BLS counts the job inside “Registered Nurses”.

• BLS's Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey asks employers to report jobs by SOC occupation. ICU nurses are reported inside “Registered Nurses”, and BLS does not break the specialty out.
• A median for the whole occupation mixes every job in it. ICU Nurses can sit anywhere in that range; the data does not say whether they earn more or less than the occupation as a whole.
• Experience, setting, shift work, overtime and location all move pay inside an occupation, and none of them is separated for this specialty in the BLS data.

Data O*NET 31.0 describes ICU nurses (Critical Care Nurses, O*NET-SOC 29-1141.03) separately from the broader BLS occupation, so the job itself is documented even though its pay is not. O*NET places it in Job Zone 4 of 5 (considerable preparation). In O*NET's survey of occupation experts in this occupation, the most common answer for the education the job requires was a bachelor's degree (50%).

Core tasks rated most important by occupation experts (O*NET).

1. Evaluate patients' vital signs or laboratory data to determine emergency intervention needs.
2. Monitor patients for changes in status and indications of conditions such as sepsis or shock and institute appropriate interventions.
3. Administer medications intravenously, by injection, orally, through gastric tubes, or by other methods.
4. Monitor patients' fluid intake and output to detect emerging problems, such as fluid and electrolyte imbalances.
5. Prioritize nursing care for assigned critically ill patients, based on assessment data or identified needs.
6. Compile and analyze data obtained from monitoring or diagnostic tests.

• Read the pay range in ICU nurse job postings for the places you would work, where employers publish one.
• Ask the recruiter or hiring manager for the range for this exact title and shift before the final interview.
• Use the registered nurses figures as context for the wider occupation, not as a quote for this specialty: the full Registered Nurses pay data shows the percentiles and states BLS publishes.
• Compare like with like: the same setting, the same shift pattern and the same years of experience.