Cognitive specialty
Psychiatry: Salary, Residency & Career Guide
Mental health diagnosis, longitudinal treatment and psychiatric emergencies.
Typical Training
4 years
4-year psychiatry residency
Attending Compensation
$350,786
Average Total Compensation
Employment outlook
+7%
Projected Job Growth
Relative Competitiveness Index
54 / 100
Moderate
Start in Medical School
M1 to M4 Preparation
Practical experience, projects and rotation planning.
See the Medical School RoadmapAttending Compensation and State Wages
U.S. Attending Compensation
$350,786
Average Total Compensation
BLS State Median Wages (Separate Data Series)
Highest published state medians. Select another state above for its figure.
Resident Pay by Institution
4-year psychiatry residency.
2026–27 salaries, five published training-institution examples.
Selected institution
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
$77,049/ year
Pay varies by institution and postgraduate year.
Schedules and Work Setting
Schedule and Call
Outpatient medication management and psychotherapy can mean scheduled sessions, while inpatient psychiatry, ED consults and call add acute safety decisions. The work may be emotionally demanding even without physically procedural nights.
Practice Settings
Outpatient practice, inpatient psychiatry, consultation-liaison and community mental health.
Procedures and Clinical Work
- Psychiatric assessment
- Psychotherapy
- Medication management
- Electroconvulsive therapy in trained settings
Fellowship Training
Fellowship Expectation Index
2 / 5
Fellowship Options
Common Fellowship Duration: 1–2 year(s) beyond residency. Consultation-liaison psychiatry is commonly a year; child and adolescent psychiatry is commonly two and may begin during residency.
General inpatient, outpatient and consultation psychiatry remain viable without a fellowship. Child/adolescent, addiction, geriatric and forensic careers may involve formally defined extra training.
Direct Practice
General adult psychiatry in inpatient, outpatient, community or telehealth practice.
Specialized Practice
Child and adolescent psychiatry and other board-recognized subspecialty certification tracks involve additional training.
Choosing a Path
Decide whether you enjoy general adult psychiatry before investing in a subspecialty identity. If child/adolescent psychiatry appeals, ask programs about early-entry routes and how they affect residency time.
Potential Fellowship Pathways
- Child and adolescent psychiatry
- Addiction psychiatry
- Geriatric psychiatry
- Consultation-liaison psychiatry
Fellowship Careers From This Residency
Choose a subspecialty to see its training requirements, clinical work and preparation pathway.
Preparing in M1 Through M4
Observe both psychiatric inpatient admissions and longitudinal outpatient care. Safety assessments, treatment response and therapeutic relationships change over months.
Research or QI
Projects in integrated behavioral health, substance-use treatment access, mental-health quality measures or collaborative care connect to clinical practice.
Common Mistake
Describing psychiatry as a “lighter schedule” without understanding acute suicidality, involuntary treatment, complex medication management and emotionally demanding continuity.
Preparation by Year
- 1Observe a community mental-health clinic and an inpatient consultation; see how symptoms, social determinants and safety change care plans.
- 2Explore a supervised substance-use treatment or collaborative-care project that focuses on access, retention or outcomes.
2027 ERAS Signals: 10.
Ask a resident this: How much protected psychotherapy supervision and longitudinal patient responsibility do residents receive?
MD vs DO Match Outcomes
1,304 of 1,463 matched to their preferred specialty
487 of 600 matched to their preferred specialty
MD vs DO difference: 7.9 percentage points
Applicant Considerations
The 2024 MD–DO preferred-specialty gap was smaller than in dermatology and orthopaedics. For psychiatry, credible patient-centered experiences and psychotherapy/medical training fit are more informative than degree stereotypes.
DO Application Strategy
Choose sites with strong consult-liaison and longitudinal care teaching, then look at program-level DO experience rather than relying on generic “DO-friendly” labels. Confirm exam policies only where they matter.
Job Outlook
+7%
Projected Employment Growth
2025 to 2035, BLS occupational projection
Regional hiring depends on employers, workforce supply and patient demand.
AI and the Specialty
Potential Workflow Changes
Administrative tasks and symptom monitoring may be augmented; therapeutic rapport, risk assessment and complex care decisions remain clinician-led.
Sources & Data Notes
Reviewed . National attending compensation uses Doximity's 2026 specialty survey (2025 pay) where available, then verified specialty-specific Medscape, Marit or Salary.com estimates. Doximity, Medscape and Marit report total compensation; Salary.com models base salary. Survey averages, modeled salaries and BLS wage medians measure different populations and must not be interpreted as identical metrics. BLS May 2025 state wages are shown separately and exclude self-employed physicians. The ophthalmology BLS category excludes pediatric ophthalmologists. State figures may be missing, top-coded, or suppressed. Job outlook uses BLS 2025–2035 occupational projections; it is not a local vacancy forecast. Resident stipend examples reflect published institutional scales for 2026 to 2027, by postgraduate year, not specialty. Stanford includes housing in its reported base salary; other institutions handle allowances differently.
The Relative Competitiveness Index uses a fixed score of 25 plus 1.75 times the 2024 U.S. MD preferred-specialty unmatched percentage, rounded, then applies the same 1.225 multiplier to every specialty. Neurological Surgery is 98/100; the score is not the applicant's chance of matching. It is not a 2026 estimate or DO-specific score. The MD and DO percentages compare different unadjusted applicant cohorts who ranked that specialty first. They do not account for application strategy, program selection, scores, or geography. Ophthalmology and urology have separate specialty match processes; other pathways may lack suitable NRMP cohorts.
The 1–5 Fellowship Expectation Index is an editorial assessment of customary career paths, not a measured participation rate or requirement. For residency profiles, compact training labels put specialty years before the clinical base or preliminary year; e.g. 3+1 means three specialty years and one clinical base year, even though the clinical year comes first. Fellowship-defined careers are presented in the separate fellowship explorer. Schedules, procedural scope, preparation suggestions, and potential AI effects depend on the program and practice setting; they are qualitative descriptions, not guaranteed outcomes or forecasts of physician replacement.
For Psychiatry: Doximity 2026, Average Total Compensation, reported under “Psychiatry.” The national estimate must not be treated as a state-specific compensation figure.
Psychiatry: Editorial classification; no claim about the percentage of psychiatry graduates undertaking fellowship. Specialty-specific roadmaps describe illustrative activities, not mandatory publication, shadowing-hour, rotation, or skill requirements. Common fellowship routes: Consultation-liaison psychiatry is commonly a year; child and adolescent psychiatry is commonly two and may begin during residency.