Social Worker Salary in Florida – City-by-City Guide

Your motivation for getting into social work might be personal. Maybe you’ve lived through one hurricane too many and will advocate for better disaster services and help people rebuild their lives when the storms pass with the Red Cross out of Miami. Maybe you were about Trayvon Martin’s age when he was killed, and now want to dedicate your career to promoting social justice and ending gun violence.

You come to a career in social work with a yardstick that measures what good you can give back to your community, not what kind of wealth you can extract from it.

For all that, though, the first thing you need to do is to make sure that you don’t end up among the impoverished and oppressed. The disadvantaged populations in Florida need allies, not extra mouths to feed.

We know one thing about every single person thinking about a social work degree in Florida without even asking: you aren’t in it for the money.

But it’s still vital that you consider your earning potential as a social worker. Sustainable assistance is only possible when you can put food on your own family’s table and a roof over their heads. And we’re here to open the book on exactly how much you can expect in various Florida social work jobs to make that happen.

Social Worker Salary by Degree Level in Florida

You’ll see it time and again throughout the course of your career in social work: your level of education has a lot to do with the possibilities that open up in your life. The more you know, the broader your horizons. That’s as true when you are aiming at a career to help people dig themselves out of poverty and inequity as it is for people trying to work their way out of poverty and inequity themselves.

In social work, a college degree has both immediate and secondary effects on salary.

First, a college graduate simply has a greater value to employers, not to mention society, across the board. Every conceivable kind of degree that leads to social work jobs comes with some element of a traditional liberal arts education. That kind of instruction builds in strong and powerful life skills alongside specialized professional knowledge:

You learn how to learn, making it easy for you to pick up new things at any job
You learn how to be organized and manage your time and resources
You develop critical thinking and reasoning skills that you can apply to any problem that comes up anywhere in work or life
You gain general knowledge about the state of the world, about people, about the systems of law, science, and culture that are the foundations for society

That’s a powerful package of skills that employers are always going to find value in. And value translates to higher paychecks.

Your Level of Education Will Also Influence Your Ability to Get a Florida Social Work License

Next, in Florida as with many states, certain types of social work are restricted to those who hold a license: only Licensed Clinical Social Workers (LCSW) can perform direct psychotherapeutic counseling services with clients in Florida. And only individuals who have earned a Master of Social Work degree are eligible to earn an LCSW.

A Certified Master Social Worker in Florida also must have an MSW, but the credential is not required for any specific jobs in the state.

The process of going through licensing or certification also tells potential employers that you have met high state standards, which is likely to result in a salary bump.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is the authority when it comes to the annual earnings and employment levels for any American profession. They track four different categories of social workers, but unfortunately those don’t separate out easily by level of education. Still, it’s possible to make some assumptions based on salary ranges within each group as reported for 2023 in Florida.

MSW-Holders are the Biggest Part of Florida’s Social Services Workforce, and Earn the Biggest Salaries

With higher qualifications and advanced responsibilities that can include clinical assessment and counseling, Master of Social Work graduates in Florida, both those with and without licenses, are likely to see salaries at the high end of the scale.

MSW-holders represent the biggest proportion of social workers in the state. In fact, a full 66% of Florida social workers in mental health and substance abuse counseling hold an MSW. In healthcare it’s 35%. And in child welfare, family services, and school social work it’s 36%.

And since this is also the largest and most diverse group in terms of years in the field and employment settings, MSW graduates in Florida are also likely to see the most significant range of salaries. For that reason, we’re showing the range between the top 25% average and the starting point for the top 10%:

Child, Family, and School Social Workers – $57,480 – $71,100 or more
Healthcare Social Workers – $74,610 – $83,350 or more
Mental Health and Substance Abuse Social Workers – $65,010 – $74,220 or more
All Other Social Workers – $78,310 – $96,620 or more

A big step beyond the basic level of qualification comes with doctoral degrees in the field, whether the practice focused Doctor of Social Work or PhD in Social Work. They represent no more than 5% of all social workers here in Florida and are most likely to end up with very respectable salaries on par with the top end of the scale shown above for MSW graduates.

BSW-Prepared Social Workers Earn Respectable Salaries, and are the Second-Largest Part of Florida’s Social Services Community

With a lot of demand in the market and a lot of job prospects to match, BSW graduates are likely to see salaries or par with the state average.

BSW graduates also represent one of the largest groups of social workers in Florida, with 38% of child and family welfare social workers and 16% of mental health social workers here holding a bachelor’s:

Child, Family, and School Social Workers – $50,160
Healthcare Social Workers – $62,900
Mental Health and Substance Abuse Social Workers – $55,540
All Other Social Workers – $59,390

Working in Support Roles, Florida’s Associate-Prepared Social Workers Earn Entry-Level Salaries

Social workers with associate degrees in human services represent less than ten percent of the social services workforce here in Florida. In entry-level positions that don’t come with the burden of high stakes duties, this group is more likely to fall into the lower quarter, with salaries maxing out at:

Child, Family, and School Social Workers – $38,780
Healthcare Social Workers – $50,670
Mental Health and Substance Abuse Social Workers – $41,620
All Other Social Workers – $39,580

Your Social Work Specialization Has a Lot to Do with Your Earning Potential in Florida

You certainly recognize the differences in salaries at every level between the four major categories of social worker that BLS tracks. So you already can see that what area of practice you choose to specialize in within those categories will have a significant influence on your salary, too.

Those four categories are each a big tent, however, reflecting many diverse specializations and types of practice within them. For example, within healthcare social work, you can find positions ranging from on-site hospice workers in Miami-Dade with Insight Global Healthcare to remote psychotherapy jobs with Guideline Healthcare. There are even positions working as a health care facility surveyor in Miami.

The many capabilities of social workers means they can find specialist roles within many different fields.

There are also professional social work certifications available, particularly through the National Association of Social Workers, that can increase your value for any one of these particular specialties. Like a state-issued credential, these certs represent an independent evaluation of your expertise and practice potential, weighed by:

It’s not possible with the available data to quantify how much of a difference these qualifications will make in your pay. But it’s completely reasonable to think they will both improve your hiring potential in high-quality positions and increase the likelihood of higher pay in related positions.

Exploring the Salaries for the Highest Level of Social Work Degrees

Not all social workers wind up working directly in the field of human services. That means that the salary data for social workers isn’t always the most relevant place to look for your potential pay range with a social work degree.

That’s especially the case when it comes to graduates with PhDs, and to a lesser extent, DSW degrees.

The PhD, or Doctor of Philosophy, in social work is traditionally less aimed at developing advanced practice and leadership skills and more at boosting your academic and research abilities in the field. This more typically leads to jobs in academia than in actual social work practice, so you might be more interested in how Florida pays college professors.

For 2023, unfortunately, there weren’t enough postsecondary social work teachers positions in the state for BLS to gather accurate data. For the broader category they ended up in, all other postsecondary teachers, the average annual salary was $72,210. That’s not too far off the $77,530 found for social work educators in neighboring Georgia, however.

DSW grads may also go into education, but their degrees are actually aimed at high levels of practice. This can lead to those top ranks in the social work world, but also to roles in government and in non-profit leadership. It’s not unusual to find them working as chief executives in individual and family services agencies. For 2023, the national average salary for such positions came to an eye-popping $158,350.

Industry of Employment Will Influence Your Social Work Pay and Benefits

Of course, it’s very common for various kinds of social work job specializations to primarily be found in certain kinds of industries. If you’re a healthcare social worker, naturally you will find most of your positions in hospital and clinic environments like those of AdventHealth, the 7^th largest employer in the state.

That’s not always the case, though. For example, some healthcare social workers also wind up with jobs in the insurance or legal industries, such as at Brooks Law Group in Winter Haven, where a social security disability case manager needs to know the ins and outs of medical records and social services to oversee appeals for disability claims. And salaries for different kinds of social workers working in different types of industries can also vary quite a bit.

BLS doesn’t offer a breakdown so detailed as to dive into industries of employment within Florida for social workers. But you can get some perspective of the relative differences from industry to industry from the national averages for 2023:

Those are the industries in which social workers are most commonly employed around the country. You get a somewhat different perspective if you look at which industries offer the highest salary levels for social workers:

It’s also the case that different industries have different norms when it comes to other aspects of your compensation, like vacation time and healthcare benefits. You’ll want to explore what the typical benefits package looks like for different kinds of employers and how that might influence your decision to pursue careers in specific industries.

Where You Work in Florida Will Make a Difference in Salary and Expenses

There is an awful lot of money sloshing around in Florida, often right next to some of the places where social workers find the most inequity. A short drive between Jacksonville and Tallahassee will take you through some of the lowest income areas in the state, but you’ll find multimillion dollar oceanfront homes on either end.

Naturally, the amount of wealth in a particular part of the state influences salary levels for social workers. But it also puts pressure on cost-of-living expenses, which can make it a double-edged sword.

Still, you can’t spend what you don’t make, so your first consideration for areas to live and work in Florida will probably reflect what sort of wages you can expect. We’ve got the numbers for the four categories of social work jobs for a range of popular metro areas in Florida:

Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach Social Worker Salaries

Jacksonville Social Worker Salaries

Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater Social Worker Salaries

Tallahassee Social Worker Salaries

Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford Social Worker Salaries

Panama City Social Worker Salaries

No matter where you live, though, even if it’s in the shade of those big gleaming mansions, you’re going to find people who need your help. And social work jobs in every category are projected by BLS to grow over the next decade at a rate of around 17 percent in Florida… much faster than most jobs, and faster than the national rate of growth even for social work positions.

That kind of demand puts pressure on salaries to move higher. That’s particularly true when the educational pipeline is throttled, as may happen in Florida if efforts like StopWOKE succeed in eliminating teaching of social justice and anti-racist materials in colleges.

So for anyone with the dedication and heart to take on the challenges of health, social justice, and societal inequality in Florida, now is the time to get your degree in social work. Not only will you be doing the right thing for your community and your state, you’ll also be on the leading edge of a profession poised to grow and triumph.

2023 US Bureau of Labor Statistics salary and employment figures for Social Workers, Individual and Family Services and Social Work Teachers, Postsecondary reflect national data, not school-specific information. Conditions in your area may vary. Data accessed October 2024.