The Best Shoes for Nurses: 6 Pairs Built for a 12-Hour Shift

A nurse averages around six and a half kilometres in a single shift (about 9,000 steps),¹ and more than half report foot or ankle pain that follows them home.² Here are six pairs built to take some of that load back off.

A nursing shift is not a day on your feet. It is a day at pace, on hard floors, often through spills, usually without the chance to sit down when your feet start asking you to.

I spend a lot of my week helping people find shoes for jobs that are hard on feet, and healthcare workers are near the top of that list. You need the most out of a pair, and you have the least time to go hunting for it. So this is the short list I would hand a friend heading into their first ward rotation, or their fifteenth year of it.

Here is the short version, because you are probably reading this on a break. The shoes that survive a nursing shift get the same three things right: arch support that still holds its shape at hour ten, cushioning that absorbs a hard floor rather than just feeling soft in the shop, and a fit in your actual width that you can adjust once it is on. Then three things a ward asks for on top: an upper you can wipe or wash clean, an outsole with real grip for wet floors, and an easy way in and out for feet that swell by the end of a long shift. Every pair below has the three. Whether you are on a twelve-hour ward shift, aged care rounds, or back-to-back theatre lists, this is written for you.

Dee Riediger

Lead Social & Email Marketing Specialist / Resident Style Editor, The Comfort Co

The office's go-to for "would this actually work?", and the friend who will physically stop you leaving the house in shoes that secretly hurt.

The best shoes for nurses: my six picks

My top pick is first. The other five each solve for something it does not: a wet floor, a strict dress code, or feet that have swollen by the end of a long shift.

1. Vitasole Walker Mesh III. My top pick, $179.95

Breathable mesh upper. EU 36 to 47, Medium and Wide. Removable footbed. Heel about 55mm, 10mm pitch. VX Technology.

The Walker Mesh III is the pair I hand most nurses first, and it is the one our podiatrist points aged care and ward staff to in the shoes for standing all day guide as well. The mesh upper actually moves air, which matters when a foot is sealed in a shoe for twelve hours in a warm ward. It also has the widest size run here, EU 36 to 47, so swollen and hard-to-fit feet both have somewhere to go. The footbed lifts straight out for your own orthotic.

Underfoot, VX Technology pairs EVA cushioning with a meta-rocker sole, which rolls you through each step instead of leaving your forefoot to finish it. Over six kilometres of corridor, that is not a small thing.

The tradeoff is the mesh itself. It breathes, but it is not a barrier, so a spill goes in rather than beading on top. Treat this as your warm-ward, high-step-count shoe, and let one of the leather pairs below be your splash shoe. If spills are a real worry, the same shoe comes in a Walker Leather at $219.95 that wipes down properly, though you give up the mesh's breathability.

Shop the Walker Mesh III →

2. Scholl Worker Work Shoe, Black. The workhorse, $139.95

PU upper, slip-resistant rubber outsole. Unisex, EU 36 to 46, Medium. Orthaheel support. Wipe-clean. Slip-tested to ASTM F2913-19.

If you work on a ward with a notoriously slippery floor, or you just want the surest footing underfoot, start here. This is the only pair on the list that is a purpose-built work shoe, with a non-marking rubber outsole tested to the ASTM F2913-19 slip-resistance standard on wet, dry and oily surfaces. Scholl builds it for hospitality, healthcare and retail, and it shows. The PU upper is water-resistant and wipes clean in seconds, the elastic side panels let it slip straight on and off over a swollen foot, and Orthaheel support sits underneath. At $139.95 it is also one of the cheapest here.

It has two catches worth knowing. It comes in Medium only. Its insole is also fixed rather than lift-out, so if you wear a custom orthotic, its leather sibling the Scholl June at $189.95 is the one to look at: the same slip-resistant, wipe-clean work build, but with a removable orthotic-friendly footbed.

It is also one of several in Scholl's work range. If you would rather a lace-up or a different slip-on in the same wipe-clean, work-built style, the Judy and the John are both $189.95.

Shop the Scholl Worker →

3. Aetrex Danika Sneaker, Black. $259.95

Mesh upper, rubber outsole. EU 36 to 43, Medium. Built-in arch support plus a removable footbed. Machine washable. Heel about 28mm.

Aetrex is one of the most respected names in foot support, and the Danika builds that into a sneaker. Its arch support is engineered into the shoe itself, shaped by the data behind millions of Aetrex foot scans worldwide, so you get real support from the first wear. There is still a removable footbed if you run your own orthotic. The whole shoe is also machine washable, so the end of a rough shift is a wash cycle, not a write-off.

Shop the Aetrex Danika →

4. Vionic Walk Max Lace-Up, White. $259.95

Breathable mesh upper with a water-repellent coating. US 5 to 11, roomy fit. Vio Motion support, Super Critical Foam midsole, removable footbed.

For the nurse whose feet are fine at handover and aching by hour nine, the Walk Max is the pick. It is built around Vio Motion, Vionic's podiatrist-designed system that pairs real cushioning with arch support and stability. It softens the hard floor and guides the foot at the same time rather than just feeling soft underneath. The upper is a breathable mesh with a water-repellent coating, so it stays cool through a long shift and shrugs off the odd splash, and white sits inside most dress codes. Underfoot, Vionic's Super Critical Foam midsole adds rebound to the cushioning. It runs on the roomier side, which is a quiet advantage when feet swell late in a shift, so size to your true US size rather than up.

That coating handles a splash, not a soaking, so if your ward is wet more often than dry, a sealed leather pair like the Tampa or the water-resistant Worker is the surer splash shoe.

Shop the Vionic Walk Max →

5. Revere Tampa Zip Casual Sneaker, White. $249.95

Full-grain leather upper. US 5 to 12, Medium and Wide. Side zip plus laces. Removable footbed. Heel about 30mm.

The Tampa is the smart, wipe-clean, easy-on-easy-off pick. Full-grain leather takes a spill on the surface instead of soaking it in, so you get a moment to wipe it before it sets. The side zip is the feature nurses tell me they miss most in other shoes: at the end of a long shift, when feet have swelled and you just want them off, you unzip rather than fight the laces. You can still lace it to dial the fit in, and a volume spacer takes up room if you are between sizes or wearing a thin orthotic. White for a strict dress code, or the same shoe in black if you would rather not see every mark.

Its outsole is not slip-rated the way the Worker's is, so if your floors are wet more often than not, the Worker is the surer bet. Smooth white leather also shows scuffs, so black is the lower-maintenance colour.

Shop the Revere Tampa Zip →

6. Scholl Maggie Slip-On Casual Sneaker. $119.95

Engineered knit upper. EU 36 to 42, Medium. Removable footbed. Heel about 40mm.

Rotating between two pairs is the best way to get real longevity out of your shoes. The same pair every shift never lets the cushioning recover or the upper dry out, so both wear faster for it. The Maggie is the one I would slot in as that second pair: at $119.95 it is less than half the price of the premium picks, it slips straight on when you are running late, and it still has Scholl's Orthaheel support and a removable footbed underneath. None of that is to say it cannot be your only pair, on a drier ward it fits the bill perfectly well on its own.

Knit does not wipe clean the way leather does, so if your shifts run wet or messy it earns its place as a rotation or commute pair, but on a drier ward it is happy as your everyday shoe.

Shop the Scholl Maggie →

What a shift actually does to your feet

Nurses walk. In one 2024 study that tracked nurses across full shifts, a twelve-hour shift averaged around 9,000 steps, close to six and a half kilometres,¹ most of it on hard floors, much of it without sitting down.

That mileage leaves a mark. In an Australian study of 304 hospital nurses, 43.8% reported foot or ankle pain in the past week, and 55.3% in the past year, with one in six reporting pain bad enough to limit what they could do.² Nurses working intensive care were among the most affected. This is not a minority complaint. It is closer to the default.

Standing is its own load, separate from the walking. More than four hours a day on your feet is enough on its own to raise the risk of lower back trouble,³ and a shift clears that many times over before the first break.

The shoe cannot shorten the shift. What it can do is take on the three things you actually control: support that holds its shape into hour ten, cushioning that absorbs the floor instead of passing it up your legs, and a fit that works with your foot rather than against it.

Wet floors, swelling and the size trap

Healthcare floors get wet, and slips are a real occupational risk, not a footnote. The good news is that footwear helps. In a randomised trial of 4,554 NHS staff, purpose-made slip-resistant footwear cut slips at work by 37%.⁴ That is exactly what the Scholl Worker above is built for, with an outsole tested to the ASTM F2913-19 slip-resistance standard on wet, dry and oily surfaces.

The other trap is size, and it is sneakier. Feet swell across a long shift, so the pair that feels right when you lace up at 7am can feel a size too small by late afternoon. In one study, people rated a set of insoles after one minute, then again after a full working day, and their preference changed for 65% of them.⁵ Two thirds wanted something different once their feet had actually done the work.

So judge shoes at the end of a shift, not the start of one, and in the socks you actually work in. If a pair is snug at hour two, it will be unwearable by hour ten. If you know you are hard to fit, start with the pairs above that come in a true Wide, the Walker and the Tampa, rather than sizing up in length and letting your heel slide.

When it is not the shoe

Sometimes the shoe is not the problem, and I would rather say so than sell you a fifth pair.

If you already own shoes that should do the job and your feet still complain, the cheaper next step is usually a better insole rather than a new pair. That is exactly what the removable footbed is for. Our podiatrist has written a full guide to insoles for standing all day at work if that is where you are.

Aching, heavy legs late in a shift can be about circulation rather than the shoe, and a lot of nurses find compression socks help with the swelling that a day of standing brings on. If you have heel pain that bites first thing in the morning, or any pain that has hung around for weeks, please stop reading shoe blogs and see a podiatrist. Conditions like plantar fasciitis need an actual assessment, and no shoe on this list is a substitute for one.

On your feet in a different job? The same thinking, aimed at the classroom, is in our best work shoes for teachers guide.

Questions I get from nurses

Still stuck between two pairs? Our Comfort Concierge will talk you through it, and they will tell you if the answer is neither.