Aims and objectives: To explore the variation of registered nurses’ conceptions of the professional work in contemporary somatic health care. Background: The turnover of registered nurses has consistently been high in recent years. This implies that competence is at risk of disappearing from patient care, which might lead to an increase in organisational costs and a decreased quality of care. Therefore, management at all levels within healthcare organisations is trying to find ways to make use of available nursing resources more efficiently. This could imply new views on nurses’ professional work in future. Design: Qualitative design with a phenomenographic approach. Methods: Semistructured interviews with registered nurses in somatic care. Result: Four descriptive categories emerged: registered nurse as an expert in nursing, registered nurse as a close collaborator to the patients, registered nurse as a coordinator and leader and registered nurse as an administrator. Conclusions: The registered nurses’ conception of their work is being experts in nursing and having a key role in leading the care forward. They perceive that they are important in coordinating the care to guarantee that the patient receives the right competence. Registered nurses perceive their work to be most important when working in close interaction with the patients, whereas the organisation is perceived as an obstacle to achieve this. Relevance to clinical practice: This result may be a contribution to understand what registered nurses conceive is their work. The result can also help identifying factors influencing registered nurses intent to stay. Thus, it is of importance for managers to involve the professionals in the development of clinical care, as well as allowing professionals to influence higher‐level organisational changes to ensure quality in care and patient safety.