After working as a paediatric and neonatal nurse for 13 years, Laura Banbury says a recent transition to the cosmetic injectables industry means her anxiety is now "completely gone".

"After I went off on maternity leave and feeling burnt out … I was offered a job in a beautiful clinic five minutes' drive from my house," she said.

"I can pick what hours I want to do and book clients in around my kids' daycare, school pick-up, and after-school activities.

Based at Woonona in the NSW Illawarra region, Ms Banbury said public hospitals were a "high-pressure environment" that had become "increasingly busy over the past 10 years".

She said several of her registered nurse colleagues were also looking to switch to cosmetics because of burn-out.

Cosmetic injectables, such as botox and lip fillers, must be prescribed by a doctor and administered by a nurse, or someone with higher qualifications.

"We've had hundreds of people calling the clinic asking if there are any positions available because of the hours, and the community," Ms Banbury said.

It is something cosmetic nurse Shivawn Jeans can relate to. After moving across from hospital work six years ago, she now runs her own business in Wagga Wagga in southern NSW.

"Working shifts in emergency for 12 hours at a time with two young kids just wasn't feasible for my family," she said.

Ms Jeans moved into the industry at a time when it was starting to boom and said her clientele has since "more than quadrupled".

A market report by global analyst Grandview Research showed Australia's facial injectable market alone was worth $2.6 billion in 2020 and is expected to grow by 26 per cent by 2028.

Cosmetic nurses are not yet counted in Australia's official workforce data, but the industry estimated it employed more than 4,000 people nationally.

"I would say 70 per cent of that … are registered nurses or enrolled nurses, with about 95 per cent of those registered nurses," Cosmetic Nurse Association board member Nicole Schmid-Sanele said.

Ms Schmid-Sanele said the industry had "exploded" since she entered it 13 years ago as a registered nurse with 10 years ICU experience in a Sydney hospital.

"For the first five years it was very slow growth … and then we saw the Kim Kardashians of the world come in and it sort of just exploded," she said.

"I'd say back then there was only a handful of nurses doing this, maybe a hundred or so."

Shivawn Jeans said while better work-life balance and the opportunity to own her own business were key factors in giving up hospital work, the money also helped.

She said while the prospect of giving up a secure salary for commission based work was daunting, her pay packet potential was "astronomically different" compared to working in a hospital.

In NSW, nurses with eight or more years of experience earn a full-time base salary of $92,000.

The union has rejected a 3 per cent pay increase offered by the government, demanding 7 per cent.

"We say it's not just money that drives people but when you have nurses who have been working for eight years on $40 or so an hour, you could be earning $200 an hour as a cosmetic nurse," Ms Jeans said.

States such as NSW are pledging to employ thousands more health staff to fill a gaping shortage, but there are questions over who will fill those positions.

Ms Schmid-Sanele said there were other things that needed to change as well.

"It all comes down to the culture of hospitals … simple things like a nurse having to pay $20 a day to park their car to go to work," she said.

The NSW Nurses and Midwives association has also noticed a shift in the type of work their members are doing.

"The trend is in part because the actual cosmetic industry itself is expanding due to consumer demand," assistant general secretary Shaye Candish said.

"But they are also looking for opportunities to get out of hospitals because of increasing demands driven particularly by the pandemic over the last three years."

Ms Candish said nurses used to work in hospitals for decades, but that contemporary workloads were unsustainable long term.

Laura Banbury still hoped to return to the neonatal unit in some capacity.

"If I can have a few years' break to recover and have a bit of a break from the night shift, after seven years of having kids of my own, if I could do both that would be a really nice balance," she said.

NSW Health and the NSW Health Minister have been contacted for comment.