Cardiologist Salary in Chicago, IL 2026,
$475,590 Median | BLS + Market Data

Chicago cardiologists earn a BLS median of $475,590/yr across the Chicago-Naperville-Elgin metro, with a published band from $84,440 to $749,590. That is 4.1% below the US median for the speciality. BLS counts 150 cardiologists in the metro, a count that reflects how the survey classifies physician employment rather than the true size of the local cardiology community.

No — the metro median sits 8.2% below the Illinois statewide figure, which is a genuinely informative inversion. Health systems in the collar counties and downstate compete for cardiologists against a smaller supply and frequently pay above city rates, while the metro's academic centres pay below private practice. Among peer metros Chicago sits below Charlotte at $528,750 and just below San Diego at $493,670, and well above Dallas at $403,340, San Antonio at $382,000 and Austin at $341,080.

Substantially, and it is the clearest driver of the upper half of this band. Interventional cardiology, electrophysiology and structural heart work generate procedural revenue that non-invasive practice does not, and they carry call obligations that general cardiology does not — a primary percutaneous coronary intervention programme has to be staffed at three in the morning. The region's high-volume programmes compete for a small national pool of these proceduralists, which is what pushes compensation toward the $749,590 at the top of this published range.

Licensure itself is general: the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation issues a Physician and Surgeon licence, not a cardiology one, through its Medical Board. The speciality is built on top of it — a medical degree, three years of internal medicine residency, a three-year cardiovascular disease fellowship, and typically a further one to two years for interventional or electrophysiology subspecialisation, with board certification through the American Board of Internal Medicine. Illinois licenses statewide; Chicago issues nothing additional, though individual hospitals grant privileges separately.

Because the counted workforce is tiny and heterogeneous. With 150 cardiologists in the sample, a handful of part-time academic appointments can pull the 10th percentile down to $84,440 — a figure no full-time practising cardiologist in this metro would recognise. At the other end, a small number of high-volume proceduralists pull the 90th percentile to $749,590. Neither tail describes the typical job. The median and the 75th percentile at $683,380 are the parts of this distribution a cardiologist evaluating an offer should actually use.

OEWS surveys establishments about the employees on their payroll. That works well for hospital-employed staff and poorly for physicians, many of whom are partners in practices, contractors, or coded under a broader physician category rather than under a subspecialty SOC. The result for cardiology in this metro is a published workforce of 150 against a real community several times larger. The wage figures themselves are real observations from real payrolls — nothing here is modelled — but the sample they come from is narrow, and the correct way to use this page is as a check on plausibility rather than as a census.

The 8.2% gap between this metro's median and the Illinois statewide figure runs the opposite way to almost every other occupation on this site, and cardiologists in the region will recognise why. Chicago proper concentrates academic medical centres, which pay below market for senior clinical roles and buy the difference back in research time and reputation. The collar counties, downstate systems and independent cardiology groups compete for a limited supply of proceduralists in markets where recruitment is genuinely difficult, and they pay accordingly. For a cardiologist optimising income, the geography of this metro points outward.

Independent cardiology practice has largely given way to health-system employment across this region, as it has nationally, and that has reshaped compensation structure more than level. Employed cardiologists are typically paid on a base plus work-relative-value-unit productivity model, with quality and call components layered on. The practical consequence is that the distance between the median and the top of this band is now driven by measurable procedural volume rather than by practice ownership. It also means the figures on this page — which capture wage and salary income — describe employed cardiology better than they describe the shrinking independent segment.