Florida Health Care Industry 2026

Private health care and social assistance employers in Florida averaged 1,374,246 jobs at 95,995 establishments in 2025, out of 8,814,642 private jobs statewide.

Those figures are 2025 annual averages from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, the count built from employer unemployment insurance filings (BLS QCEW 2025, Florida statewide file). The private sector average pay was $70,557 a year, a little under the $72,719 average for all private Florida industries, and the sector added 53,142 jobs from 2024, a 4.0 percent rise against 1.0 percent for all private employers.

Public employers in Florida add to the total. Local governments ran 71 health care and social assistance establishments with 42,559 jobs, the federal government 63 establishments with 29,523 jobs averaging $115,905, and the state 62 establishments with 5,596 jobs (BLS QCEW 2025).

Hospitals and physician offices are the two largest private employers in Florida health care, and physician offices pay the most of the major segments at $108,556 a year on average.

The table lists the private segments in the 2025 Florida wage file, largest first (BLS QCEW 2025, Florida statewide file).

Pay splits sharply by setting. Assisted living and continuing care communities averaged $39,355 and nursing care facilities $46,513, while specialty hospitals averaged $70,154 and psychiatric and substance abuse hospitals $59,545 (BLS QCEW 2025). Private social assistance employers, the other part of the sector (NAICS 624), employed 159,691 at an average of $38,909.

Private hospitals and home health agencies grew fastest among the large Florida segments in 2025, each adding more than 7 percent to their payrolls.

Private hospitals added 26,385 jobs, up 7.3 percent, and home health care services added 6,068, up 7.2 percent (BLS QCEW 2025, Florida). Among smaller lines, other residential care facilities grew 8.5 percent to 9,096 jobs and offices of other health practitioners grew 6.1 percent.

In the same year private general medical and surgical hospitals rose 25,561 jobs to 359,485, while local government general hospitals fell 13,046 jobs, or 24.2 percent, to 40,776 across 30 establishments (BLS QCEW 2025, Florida). Public and private hospital rows are reported separately in the file, so a year to year comparison of hospital employment needs both.

FloridaCommerce projects 81,117 more jobs by 2028, an 8.0 percent increase, in its Life Sciences target industry, whose snapshot includes health services (FloridaCommerce Target Industry Report 2025).

Miami-Dade County leads Florida in private hospital employment with 54,288 general hospital jobs, followed by Orange, Hillsborough and Duval counties.

County figures come from the 2025 file for general medical and surgical hospitals (BLS QCEW 2025, NAICS 622110 by county). Private hospitals in Orange County employed 34,283 at an average of $82,082, Hillsborough County 29,297 at $78,438, and Duval County 28,253 at $75,561. Palm Beach County had 19,337 private hospital jobs and Pinellas County 18,617. Miami-Dade's private hospitals paid the highest average of these counties, $94,274.

Broward County is the exception that the private totals hide. Its private hospitals reported 11,157 jobs, but local government hospitals there employed 23,902 at 20 establishments, the largest public hospital workforce in the state file (BLS QCEW 2025, NAICS 622110). Miami-Dade also has a large public line, 14,225 local government hospital jobs at two establishments. Anyone sizing a county's hospital workforce needs both ownership rows.

The Florida Department of Health counted 1,572,475 licensed health care practitioners in fiscal year 2024-25, and the Agency for Health Care Administration regulates more than 50,000 facilities and providers.

The practitioner count rose 2.3 percent over the prior year, and the department reports that 6.7 percent of Floridians now hold a health care license, up from 5.8 percent in fiscal year 2014-15, about 6,732 per 100,000 residents (Department of Health MQA Annual Report FY 2024-25). Over the past decade the licensee population grew 32.4 percent against 15.9 percent for the general population; the report's summary page gives 32.3 percent for growth since fiscal year 2015-16. The five largest groups, registered nurses, certified nursing assistants, medical doctors, licensed practical nurses and advanced practice registered nurses, make up 54.6 percent of all licensees. In the same year the department processed 154,990 initial applications, issued 127,779 initial licenses and a record 644,406 renewals.

Facilities are licensed separately. The agency's Division of Health Quality Assurance licenses and inspects over 30 types of providers, including hospitals, nursing homes, assisted living facilities, home health agencies, ambulatory surgical centers, clinical laboratories and hospices, more than 50,000 in total (AHCA Licensure and Background Screening). Its contact line is (850) 412-4300 at 2727 Mahan Drive in Tallahassee.

AHCA defines a hospital as a licensed facility offering services more intensive than room, board, personal services and general nursing care, with beds for stays beyond 24 hours (AHCA Hospitals page). The same page notes that effective July 1, 2019, House Bill 21, Chapter 2019-136, Laws of Florida, took certain hospital programs and services out of Certificate of Need review. The Hospital and Outpatient Services Unit answers at (850) 412-4549.

Health care does not appear by itself on the FloridaCommerce 2025 target industry list, but the snapshot for the Life Sciences target industry, which covers pharmaceuticals, medical device technology and digital health, includes health services.

That snapshot counts $128.8 billion in GDP, 66,707 establishments, 1,098,222 jobs and an average wage of $94,429 for 2024 (FloridaCommerce Target Industry Report 2025). The report ranks Florida third nationally in employment of health technologists and technicians and fourth for health information technologists and medical registrars, and second in pharmaceutical manufacturing establishments, with 20 percent employment growth in that line over three years. From 2022 to 2024 the agency worked on 69 life sciences opportunities and facilitated expansions, retentions, relocations or new locations for 23 projects, which accounted for an estimated 2,292 new and retained jobs and $660.2 million in projected capital investment.

The report names Lake Nona Medical City in Orlando, the Sid Martin Biotech Incubator in Gainesville, Scripps Research in Jupiter and the Tampa Bay medical device corridor, with Moffitt Cancer Center as a research hub, as strategic life sciences clusters (FloridaCommerce). The FloridaCommerce 1,098,222 figure, which counts pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturing alongside health services, and the BLS 1,374,246 count for health care and social assistance cover different industry groupings. A separate Digital Towns guide covers Florida hospital systems.

Last verified: October 18, 2026, against the 2025 BLS wage files for Florida and for general hospitals by county, the Department of Health licensing report for fiscal year 2024-25, two AHCA licensure pages and the FloridaCommerce 2025 target industry report.