Registered Nurses salary in Denver, Colorado

About 29,570 Registered Nurses worked in the Denver metro in 2024, making it one of the larger RN labor pools in the Mountain West. The median annual wage came in at $98,500, roughly 2% above the Colorado median of $96,520 and about 4% above the national median of $94,511.

The mean wage of $96,860 sits slightly below the median, which is unusual. In most metros the average runs above the median because a smaller group of top earners pulls it up. In Denver the numbers are close enough that no single segment of the workforce is dramatically out of step with the rest.

The spread from bottom to top is meaningful. At the 10th percentile, RNs earned $77,210. At the 90th, they earned $124,200. That $47,000 gap reflects real differences in specialty, setting, and years of experience. An ICU nurse with a decade in the field and a new grad in an outpatient clinic are both counted in this median, and the spread shows it.

Denver's wage sits above the national figure but not by a wide margin. Colorado as a whole pays RNs slightly above the US median, and Denver tracks closely with the state. Nurses considering the metro should weigh that the cost of living in Denver runs higher than in many markets where RN wages are comparable, though that adjustment falls outside what BLS data captures here.