As the Nurse Shortage Grows, Universities Are Recruiting More Men

Nursing has become one of the hottest professions in the United States, and universities are working hard to bring more men into it. According to NPR, the Labor Department projects 189,000 registered nurse openings every year for the next decade, yet only about 1 in 8 nurses are men. That mismatch, a field desperate for workers and a talent pool that is largely untapped, is exactly why schools like the University of Alabama at Birmingham are rolling out the welcome mat. At Metaintro, we track where the durable jobs are, and nursing is a clear example of steady demand meeting a wide-open door for people who never pictured themselves in scrubs.

Why Is Nursing One of the Hottest Jobs Right Now?

The simplest answer is demand that is not going away. The Labor Department projects 189,000 registered nurse openings each year for the next decade, a figure driven by an aging population, a wave of retirements among current nurses, and the sheer scale of the healthcare system. When a field posts that many openings year after year, it stops being a competitive scramble for new graduates and becomes a market where employers chase talent. Nursing students are already feeling it, with jobs lined up before they graduate.

That reliability is what sets healthcare apart from many other career paths right now. As NPR notes, opportunities have been diminishing in male-dominated industries like manufacturing and software engineering, which has pushed people to look for something steadier. Nursing has emerged as exactly that, a stable alternative and a solid pathway to a middle-class life. For workers watching automation and layoffs reshape their old industries, a job that cannot be offshored or handed to software has obvious appeal, and we have tracked that same pull in our look at the coming nursing shortage and how it will reshape healthcare careers.

There is a human quality to the demand too, not just a numeric one. Nursing rewards people who are calm under pressure and genuinely want to help, traits that have nothing to do with gender. The students profiled by NPR describe being drawn to the work because it suits their temperament, whether that means staying steady in a crisis or making patients feel comfortable. That combination of rock-solid job security and meaningful work is rare, and it is a big part of why the field is pulling in people who once assumed their futures lay elsewhere, a shift echoed across our reporting on healthcare hiring surges amid a talent crunch.

Why Are So Few Nurses Men?

Despite the demand, only about 1 in 8 nurses are men, and the roots of that gap are cultural rather than practical. Nursing has long been framed as women's work, a stereotype that quietly steered generations of men away before they ever considered it. The bias was not subtle. Decades ago, when many of today's nursing leaders were starting out, men made up only 4% of nurses, and some were told outright that they were only admitted to fill a quota. That kind of message does lasting damage to who sees a field as a place they belong.

The cost of that stereotype is not just personal, it is economic, because it sidelines a huge share of potential workers from a field that badly needs them. When roughly seven in eight nurses are women, the profession is effectively recruiting from half the population while begging for staff. Closing even part of that gap would ease the shortage meaningfully, which is why the effort to reach men is a workforce strategy and not only a fairness one. For men weighing a career change, the flip side is opportunity. The barrier is perception, and perception is finally shifting, a theme we explore in our guide to building a career without a traditional job path.

How Are Universities Recruiting More Men Into Nursing?

Schools are being deliberate about it, and the University of Alabama at Birmingham is a clear example of what works. The nursing school features male students across all of its marketing materials, sends both male and female nurses into high schools to recruit, and runs an employee resource group for men in nursing at the university hospital. Each of these moves attacks the same problem, which is the quiet assumption that nursing is not for men, by putting visible proof of the opposite in front of prospective students early.

The results show the strategy is paying off. At the university, close to 1 in 6 nursing students are men, outpacing the national average, and nearly 1 in 5 faculty are men. In some specialties within the university hospital, male nurses are nearly as common as female nurses. Representation feeds on itself here. When a student sees instructors and working nurses who look like them, the field stops feeling like an exception and starts feeling like a home, which is precisely the dynamic that recruiters are trying to engineer. That same welcome-mat approach is spreading across programs racing to fill seats, as we covered in the story of thousands of nursing graduates addressing a staffing crisis.

One faculty member captured the long game plainly, describing the work as removing one ice cube at a time from a much larger iceberg. Change on this scale does not happen in a single admissions cycle, but each cohort that arrives more balanced makes the next one easier. For a man considering the field today, that means the environment is measurably friendlier than it was even a decade ago, and the schools that recruited him actually want him there. If you are exploring the on-ramps, our roadmap to becoming an ER nurse walks through what the training path can look like from the start.

What Is It Like to Be a Man in Nursing Today?

The day-to-day experience is far more normal than the old stereotypes suggest, and it varies a lot by setting. In some specialties within the university hospital, male nurses are nearly as common as female nurses, so a new male nurse in those units is not an oddity but simply a colleague. In others, such as the neonatal intensive care unit where male nurses remain extremely rare, the experience can still involve being the only man on a shift. That range is worth knowing going in, because it lets a prospective nurse choose an environment that fits rather than being surprised by it.

There is also a genuine professional case that having more men in nursing improves care, not just fairness. One professor profiled by NPR believes increasing the share of male nurses will lead to better health outcomes for men, noting that patients respond when they see people caring for them who look like them. He found his own calling in the NICU, where he made a point of including fathers who sometimes felt sidelined. For a man weighing the field, that reframes the whole question. His presence is not a token gesture but a source of value that patients and families actually feel, which is a far more motivating reason to walk through the door. It also mirrors a broader lesson we return to often, that fit and belonging shape a career as much as the paycheck, a theme running through our healthcare hiring coverage.

What Does Nursing Offer as a Career?

The core appeal is a combination that few fields can match, which is durable demand paired with real earning potential and room to specialize. With 189,000 openings a year projected for the next decade, a nursing credential is close to a guarantee of employability, and that security is the foundation everything else is built on. The students NPR profiled already had jobs waiting in psychiatric care and in a heart and lung transplant intensive care unit before finishing school, a level of certainty that is almost unheard of for new graduates in many other industries right now.

Beyond security, nursing is unusually flexible about where a career can go. A registered nurse can move between hospital units, outpatient clinics, and specialties, and can keep climbing toward advanced roles with more training and higher pay. We map out the higher end of that ladder in our guides to the highest-paying nursing careers and salary paths and the highest-paid nurse practitioner specialties, and the range is wide enough that geography alone can shift your earnings, which is why we also track the highest-paying states for nurses. The point is that nursing is not a single job but an entire branching set of them.

That branching structure is a career-safety feature in its own right. If one specialty or setting stops fitting your life, the credential travels with you to another, from the emergency room to research to education. It is the opposite of a narrow role that vanishes when an industry contracts. For anyone who has watched a job disappear and wants a field where skills compound rather than expire, that portability is worth as much as the paycheck, and it is a big reason nursing keeps drawing career changers, as our forecast of healthcare jobs lays out in more detail.

How Do You Break Into Nursing as a Career Changer?

The path is more accessible than many outsiders assume, and it starts with a clear-eyed look at the credential you need. Becoming a registered nurse means completing an accredited nursing program and passing licensure, and programs are actively recruiting rather than turning people away, which shortens the psychological distance for a newcomer. The men profiled by NPR came from varied starting points, including one who began in computer science before switching, so a background outside healthcare is a common on-ramp rather than a disqualifier.

It also helps to know that healthcare offers several entry points at different levels of time and cost, not just the four-year route. Some roles let you build experience and income while you decide whether to pursue full registered-nurse licensure, and adjacent healthcare careers can serve as stepping stones. We cover several of these in our guides to a dental assistant salary and career without a degree and diagnostic medical sonographer careers, both of which show that the healthcare field has room for people entering at many stages of life. For those ready to commit fully, a related field like physical therapy offers its own career-change path.

Once you are in a program, treat the job hunt as something to start early rather than at the finish line. Nursing employers recruit aggressively, and the students who lock in roles before graduation do so by building relationships during clinical rotations and knowing how to present themselves. Our resources on ER nurse interview questions and answers and the ER nurse salary guide can help you walk into those conversations prepared. In a field this hungry for talent, being ready and visible is often all it takes to turn a credential into a job offer.

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• Highest-paying nursing careers and salary paths
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• How to become an ER nurse
• ER nurse interview questions and answers
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• Thousands of nursing graduates ease a staffing crisis
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People Also Asked

Q: How many nursing jobs are available?

A: The Labor Department projects 189,000 registered nurse openings every year for the next decade, driven by an aging population and retirements among current nurses. That level of sustained demand means new graduates often have jobs lined up before they finish school, making nursing one of the most reliable fields for employment right now.

Q: What share of nurses are men?

A: Only about 1 in 8 nurses are men, though that share is growing. Decades ago men made up just 4% of nurses. At schools making a deliberate effort, like the University of Alabama at Birmingham, close to 1 in 6 nursing students are men and nearly 1 in 5 faculty are men, ahead of the national average.

Q: Is nursing a good career for men switching from another field?

A: Yes. Nursing offers strong job security, real earning potential, and many specialties to grow into, and employers are actively recruiting. Many men enter after leaving fields like software or manufacturing, and schools now feature male students in their materials and run support groups, so the environment is far more welcoming than it once was.

Ready to explore a career that is actually hiring? Nursing offers rare stability, room to specialize, and employers competing for graduates, and schools are opening the door wider than ever. At Metaintro, we connect job seekers with fields and companies that are growing rather than shrinking. Sign up with Metaintro to find healthcare roles and training paths that fit where you want your career to go.