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More nurses are considering a job change, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they want to leave nursing or need a new career.
In the 2025–2026 American Nurse Journal Trends Survey, 26% of nurses said they planned to look for a new job within the next six months, up from 22% the previous year. Job satisfaction also declined, with 66% of clinical nurses and 67% of nurse managers reporting that they were very or somewhat satisfied with their jobs.
Yet 81% said they would still choose nursing if they had to make the career decision again, up from 76% the previous year.
The findings point to an important distinction as the profession continues to grapple with staffing, burnout, workload, and retention: Nurses can be dissatisfied with where or how they work without being ready to give up nursing.
Separate national workforce data point to similar pressures. The National Council of State Boards of Nursing’s 2024 National Nursing Workforce Study found that nearly 40% of RNs intended to leave the workforce or retire within five years. Among nurses who indicated plans to leave or retire, 41.5% cited stress and burnout as a reason, 32.6% cited workload, 29.5% cited understaffing, and 25% cited inadequate salary.
For nurses considering a change, identifying what is driving that decision can help separate dissatisfaction with a particular job from dissatisfaction with the profession.
Here are seven signs the job may need to change.
1. You Still Value Nursing, but Dread Going to Your Current Workplace
Losing interest in nursing is different from losing the desire to work in a particular environment.
A nurse may still find patient care meaningful, value clinical problem-solving, or feel connected to the profession while struggling with staffing, scheduling, management, workload, or workplace culture.
Those conditions matter. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health identifies long and unpredictable hours, demanding physical work, exposure to suffering and death, hazardous working conditions, and pressures involving patients, families, and employers as occupational stressors healthcare workers face.
When dissatisfaction is tied more to the conditions surrounding the work than to the work itself, it may be worth examining whether another workplace could be a better fit.
2. Staffing Regularly Makes You Worry About Providing the Care Patients Need
Staffing remains a major concern for nurses.
In the 2025–2026 American Nurse Journal Trends Survey, just 46% of clinical nurses said staffing assignments were appropriate to meet patient needs at least 80% of the time. That was a 13-percentage-point decline from the previous survey.
The NCSBN workforce study also identified understaffing and workload among the reasons nurses gave for intending to leave the workforce or retire.
Persistent staffing problems can affect more than job satisfaction. They can change how nurses experience their work, especially when they feel they lack adequate time or resources to provide the care patients need.
Staffing conditions vary among units, employers, and healthcare settings. A nurse frustrated by chronic understaffing may want to determine whether the problem is specific to the current workplace before concluding that nursing itself is no longer sustainable.
3. You Are Burned Out, but You Keep Functioning Anyway
Burnout does not always mean someone can no longer get through a shift.
Hospice RN case manager Darnetta Richardson, RN, kept going to work, caring for patients and handling her responsibilities even as exhaustion took its toll.
In September 2022, Richardson’s Apple Watch alerted her to an abnormal heart rate. She eventually went to the emergency room, forcing her to confront how long she had been overlooking her own well-being.
Her experience shows why continuing to function is not necessarily a reliable measure of how well a nurse is doing.
NIOSH warns that healthcare workers sometimes put others’ well-being before their own, which can delay or prevent them from getting help. The agency also emphasizes that reducing burnout requires attention to workplace policies and practices, not simply individual resilience.
Changing jobs will not automatically resolve burnout. But identifying what is driving the exhaustion can help nurses evaluate what needs to change.
4. Bullying, Harassment or an Unsafe Culture Has Become Normal
A toxic workplace can make nurses question a career they once wanted.
Research published in 2026 examined workplace violence, bullying, discrimination, burnout, and intent to leave among nurses in New York State. Burnout, bullying, and discrimination were significant predictors of nurses’ intention to leave their jobs.
NIOSH identifies staff shortages, harassment, and violence among challenging working conditions that can contribute to burnout and other poor mental health outcomes.
Those findings are important for nurses working in environments where bullying, harassment, or other harmful behavior has become normalized.
Leaving an unhealthy workplace and leaving nursing are not the same decision.
5. Your Schedule No Longer Fits Your Life
A nursing schedule that worked five or 10 years ago may not work now.
Hospital and nursing care facility nurses often work shifts to provide round-the-clock coverage. They may work nights, weekends, and holidays or be on call, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
But nursing does not require the same schedule in every setting. Nurses working in physicians’ offices, schools, and other settings without 24-hour care are more likely to work regular business hours.
Family responsibilities, caregiving, health, sleep, commuting, and changing priorities can all affect what kind of schedule is sustainable.
When the schedule is the main reason a nurse wants out, exploring a different nursing setting may offer another option.
6. You Have Outgrown the Role
Sometimes dissatisfaction is not about burnout. It is about growth.
A nurse can become highly experienced in a position and still reach a point where the role no longer offers the challenge, responsibility, or direction they want.
Kathy Moskowitz, RN, BSN, MBA, PCHA, described her own transition away from direct patient care differently.
“I didn’t really leave nursing—I changed how I practiced it,” Moskowitz told Nurse Approved.
Today, Moskowitz works as a clinical compliance specialist with AQORD, where she consults with senior living organizations, reviews documentation and procedures, conducts compliance audits, develops training, investigates concerns, and helps organizations address potential risks.
She said skills nurses develop in clinical practice can translate directly to compliance work.
“Compliance requires many of those same skills, but you’re applying them to systems rather than individual patients,” Moskowitz said.
Her career shows one way nursing experience can translate beyond traditional bedside roles. Registered nurses also work in education, administration, and other healthcare settings, and some move into the business side of healthcare, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Some career changes require additional education, certification, or experience, while others may build on skills nurses already have.
7. Nursing Somewhere Else Still Appeals to You
One question may help nurses separate frustration with a job from frustration with the profession: Would nursing feel different under different circumstances?
Consider what happens when you remove the biggest source of dissatisfaction.
Would you want to stay in nursing with a different schedule? A different manager? Better staffing? Another patient population? Less direct patient care? A position in another specialty or healthcare setting?
For nurses who can still imagine a version of nursing they want to do, exploring those alternatives may be worthwhile.
The profession still offers significant employment opportunities. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects employment of registered nurses to grow 5% from 2024 to 2034, faster than the average for all occupations. About 189,100 RN openings are projected each year, on average, during that period.
Available opportunities will vary based on location, specialty, experience, education, and other factors. And not every problem can be solved by changing employers.
But nursing is not a single job, schedule, specialty, or workplace.
Before You Leave Nursing, Identify What You Want to Leave
Some nurses will ultimately decide that leaving the profession is the right choice. Workforce data show that many are already considering it. But the latest American Nurse Journal survey reveals something else: While more nurses say they are planning to look for another job, 81% still say they would choose nursing again. Taken together, the findings suggest that dissatisfaction with a nursing job does not necessarily mean dissatisfaction with nursing as a career.
For a nurse contemplating a major career decision, that makes it worth examining the source of the dissatisfaction.
Is it patient care itself? Or is it staffing, schedule, workload, workplace culture, lack of growth, or the environment surrounding the work?
The answer may determine whether it is time to leave nursing or simply time to practice it somewhere else.
