It’s time for Drug Channels’ annual look at pharmacist salaries and employment. The latest data might be a tough pill to swallow.
As we predicted, the situation was grim for retail pharmacists. Employment in retail outpatient pharmacies fell by 8,200 positions in 2025, following a drop of 11,700 positions over 2023 and 2024 combined.
Meanwhile, pharmacist employment at hospitals grew by 3,000 positions, after hospitals added more than 11,000 pharmacist jobs in 2023 and 2024. Nearly half of all pharmacists now work outside a traditional retail setting.
Overall pharmacist salaries averaged $140,920, but varied widely across practice settings. Salary growth in many settings, however, did not keep pace with overall inflation.
Our 2026 Economic Report on U.S. Pharmacies and Pharmacy Benefit Managers documents how and why retail pharmacy economics are under sustained pressure. Since 2018, the two remaining national drugstore chains have collectively closed nearly 3,000 locations, reflecting margin compression and weaker front-end economics.
As always, full salary and employment data appear below for your enjoyment or sorrow. Click here to share your thoughts on the pharmacist job market with the Drug Channels LinkedIn community.
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PHARMACIST EMPLOYMENT TRENDS
The table below profiles overall employment and salaries for U.S. pharmacists in 2025. Click here for details about the data and our methodology.
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Observations about recent employment trends:
- Employment in retail settings dropped to its lowest level since 2010. As of May 2025, 162,000 pharmacists were employed across retail drugstores, independent pharmacies, supermarkets, convenience stores, mass merchants, and mail pharmacies. Retail pharmacist employment declined by more than 8,000 positions (-4.8%) in 2025.
Retail pharmacist employment has dropped to its lowest level since DCI began tracking these figures in 2010. It is 14.2% lower than the 2017 peak and even 7.5% below the 2021 trough of the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Hospital employment grew again in 2025. Hospitals employed 102,000 pharmacists in 2025, which represents nearly a third of all 322,000 practicing pharmacists in the United States. In 2025, hospitals added 3,000 pharmacist jobs (+3.0%).
Hospitals are investing more in their in-house specialty pharmacies. As we document in Specialty Pharmacy Accreditation: DCI’s Exclusive Analysis Reveals a Market at an Inflection Point, health systems and hospitals have emerged as the fastest-growing direct participants in the specialty pharmacy market by operating in-house pharmacies. They are responding to changes in manufacturers’ policies regarding external 340B contract pharmacies by using vertical integration to internalize specialty pharmacy as a profit center and a strategic hedge.
Some hospitals and health systems have also begun operating community retail pharmacies that dispense traditional (nonspecialty) prescriptions. In some cases, health systems are acquiring independent pharmacies or repurposing locations that were closed by retail chains. For example, Sanford Health, a large rural health system, acquired regional chain Lewis Drug in 2025.
- Employment in other non-retail settings reflected setting-specific trends. Pharmacist employment in physician offices continued to grow, reflecting the ongoing expansion of medically integrated dispensing. Although physician offices account for less than 3% of pharmacist employment, they have posted consistent gains over the past several years.
Meanwhile, the home health pharmacist workforce shrank for the third consecutive year, which we attribute to reduced post-pandemic demand.
PHARMACIST SALARY TRENDS
- Pharmacists in non-retail settings earn more than those at retail pharmacies. Pharmacists in physician offices earned average annual salaries of $167,000—more than any other setting that we track. Hospital-employed pharmacists earned annual salaries averaging $151,000.
Average salaries in retail settings are much lower—especially at retail pharmacies and drugstores.
- Pharmacists' salaries across all settings grew in 2025. Overall average salaries across all industry settings reached $140,920—a 2.7% increase over the 2024 figure of $137,210.
The survivors in retail outpatient dispensing formats (+3.2%; dark blue line in the chart below) experienced a rebound in salary growth. Meanwhile, salary growth for pharmacists in hospitals (+2.2%; orange line) was comparable to the previous year, while salaries for those in physician offices (+0.2%; light blue line) were flat.
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During this period (May 2024 to May 2025), the Consumer Price Index grew by 2.4%, retail pharmacists were the only major group to achieve meaningful real (inflation-adjusted) salary growth.
- Pharmacist salaries exceeded those of the average healthcare worker. In 2025, the average salary for all Healthcare Practitioners and Technical Occupations was $108,700. Average pharmacist salaries were more than $32,000 (+30%) higher than this average.
This gap has been shrinking. Ten years ago, pharmacists earned about 54% more than the average healthcare worker.
Our latest analysis confirms that pharmacist employment continues to shift toward higher-paying, clinical settings as retail pharmacy erodes. For pharmacists who adapt, the coming decade may offer more opportunity than the last.
Just remember what Thomas Edison said: “Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”
NOTES FOR NERDS
- We rely on the 2025 Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) program (formerly known as the Occupational Employment Statistics program) from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). BLS and the State Workforce Agencies (SWAs) collaborate on the OEWS survey. BLS funds the survey and dictates its structure, while the SWAs collect most of the data.
- The OEWS survey categorizes workers by detailed occupations based on the Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) system. The Pharmacist occupation code is 29-1051. The SOC defines pharmacists’ duties as follows:
“Dispense drugs prescribed by physicians and other health practitioners and provide information to patients about medications and their use. May advise physicians and other health practitioners on the selection, dosage, interactions, and side effects of medications.”
- Using these data, we identified pharmacists working in various retail and non-retail settings based on the NAICS (North American Industry Classification System).
- Starting with the 2022 OEWS, BLS updated from the 2017 NAICS to the 2022 NAICS. Pharmacist data formerly coded to mail pharmacy establishments within the industry code NAICS 4541 (“Electronic Shopping and Mail-Order Houses”) were reassigned into the corresponding retail NAICS shown in the table above. Consequently, the figures for the retail outpatient subcategories will not be precisely comparable to the figures reported in our analyses published prior to 2022.
- The BLS computes annual wage data by multiplying the mean hourly wage by a "year-round, full-time" figure of 2,080 hours. Figures exclude bonuses and employer costs of nonwage benefits, such as health insurance and contributions to retirement plans.
- The data include pharmacists employed by independent pharmacies and paid owners/officers of incorporated pharmacies, but exclude business owners and partners in unincorporated pharmacies.
- The data show the location of employment as a "pharmacist." They do not specify the duties that the pharmacists perform or the entity that operates the pharmacy.
- The NAICS industry code “446110 Pharmacies and Drug Stores” includes drugstores, independent pharmacies, and on-site institutional pharmacies. Thus, some pharmacists employed in a hospital-owned retail outpatient pharmacies may be classified as employees of retail pharmacies.
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