About these rates
For Sutter Alta Bates, UCSF, and Kaiser the rates are from the actual contracts. Not HR. Not "market rate." I'm a Bay Area nurse and I got these directly from my nurse friend community. Now you have them too. Because you deserve some transparency, babe 😉
Unfortunately, that's not easy to figure out. Hospitals could make this simple. Of course they didn't. Step numbers don't always equal years. every hospital has their own formula, and no, they won't explain it. This table shows the full range so you can get a feel for whether they're even worth your time.
Each hospital negotiates its own step structure independently. Comparing steps is like comparing apples to oranges. Step 10 could mean 10 years at one hospital and 25 at another. And when you're hired from outside, hospitals use their own formula to determine where you land. Nobody publishes that formula. It's a better comparison to look at years of experience.
Rates reflect the most recently ratified contract for each hospital. UCSF NX contract effective January 2025. Sutter CNA effective July 2026. Kaiser CNA Appendix A effective January 2026. NursePay updates these tables when new contracts are ratified.
Weekly, compiled from UCSF, Sutter, and Kaiser career sites by yours truly. Listings reflect what was posted at the time of the last update.
You'll notice this on Sutter listings. Sutter posts a deliberately broad pay range that buries the actual number. The contract rates in the dropdown are the real per diem rates from the Alta Bates CNA agreement — what you'd actually earn. I don't have every Sutter contract yet, so use it as a reference.
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