China healthcare salaries rise in 2025 as official data reveals private and non-private pay gap
Average annual salaries across China's health and social work sector increased in 2025, with employees in urban non-private organisations earning almost twice the average recorded in private organisations, according to new official data.
China's National Bureau of Statistics has published its latest annual wage data, providing a new benchmark for compensation across the country's healthcare and social work sector.
Employees in urban non-private health and social work organisations earned an average RMB 146,266 in 2025, compared with RMB 143,173 in 2024.
Average annual compensation in urban private health and social work organisations was considerably lower at RMB 75,631, compared with RMB 75,287 in 2024.
The figures provide a useful indication of compensation trends within China's healthcare workforce, although they cover the broader health and social work sector and should not be interpreted as physician-specific salaries.
Key findings
Average annual salary in urban non-private health and social work organisations: RMB 146,266
2024 equivalent: RMB 143,173
Nominal annual increase: 2.2%
Average annual salary in urban private health and social work organisations: RMB 75,631
2024 equivalent: RMB 75,287
Nominal annual increase: 0.5%
The figures cover the wider health and social work sector, rather than physicians or individual medical specialties
Healthcare compensation reaches RMB 146,266 in non-private organisations
Average annual compensation for employees working in urban non-private health and social work organisations reached RMB 146,266 in 2025.
That represents a nominal increase of 2.2% compared with the RMB 143,173 recorded a year earlier.
The sector's average was also above the RMB 129,441 average across all urban non-private organisations included in the statistics.
This means average compensation in the health and social work category was approximately 13% above the overall non-private urban workforce average.
Private healthcare compensation shows slower growth
The picture was different among private organisations.
Employees in urban private health and social work organisations earned an average RMB 75,631 in 2025, representing nominal growth of just 0.5% from RMB 75,287 in 2024.
The overall average across China's urban private-sector organisations was RMB 71,590.
Health and social work compensation was therefore approximately 6% above the overall private-sector average.
Significant difference between private and non-private averages
The data also highlights a substantial difference between the two employment categories.
The RMB 146,266 average recorded in non-private health and social work organisations was approximately 93% higher than the RMB 75,631 average recorded among private organisations.
However, this should not automatically be interpreted as evidence that equivalent healthcare roles receive almost twice the salary in non-private organisations.
The two datasets cover different groups of employers and employees, and differences in workforce composition, occupations and organisational structures can influence their respective averages.
What do the figures tell us about doctors' salaries in China?
The data provides an authoritative national benchmark for China's healthcare labour market, but it has an important limitation when considering physician compensation.
The National Bureau of Statistics groups healthcare together with social work and does not provide a separate physician salary figure within these particular tables.
The averages therefore include employees across a much broader workforce and cannot be used to state that the average Chinese doctor earns RMB 146,266 or RMB 75,631 per year.
For physician compensation research, the figures are more appropriately treated as a national healthcare-sector benchmark against which more detailed physician and specialty-level salary evidence can subsequently be assessed.
About the data
The National Bureau of Statistics published the figures on 15 May 2026, covering average wages during 2025.
Average wages are calculated using the total wages paid by organisations divided by their average number of employees during the reporting period.
The wage measure is pre-tax and includes amounts deducted or withheld for individual income tax, employees' social insurance contributions and housing provident fund contributions.
The wider urban employment survey covered approximately 3.062 million organisations in 2025. Self-employed individuals and freelancers are not included.
Source
National Bureau of Statistics of China. Average Annual Wages of Employees in Urban Units in 2025.https://www.stats.gov.cn/sj/zxfb/202605/t20260515_1963707.html
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