Objective To investigate the current status of core competence of surgical nurses in operation theatre and to explore the influencing factors of their core competence. Methods A convenient cluster sampling method was adopted. From October 2018 to December 2018, 196 surgical nurses working in operation theatre from two tertiary hospitals in Beijing were selected and evaluated with self-made surgical nurse core competency evaluation scale. The Cronbachs Alpha of the scale is 0.983 and the KMO value is 0.975. Statistical analysis was performed with SPSS 19.0. One-way ANOVA,independent sample t test and multiple linear regression analysis were used to analyze the influencing factors. Results The total score of core competence was (191.65±23.90), essential professional ability was (22.05±2.90), perioperative evaluation ability was (25.38±3.41), professional management ability was (43.82±5.00), professional cooperation ability was (51.15 ±7.34), and individual development ability was (49.25±7.50). One-way analysis of variance and independent sample t test results showed that different ages, education,titles, duties, working years and levels of nurses were related to both significant different dimensional scores and total scores (all P<0.05). The results of multiple linear regression analysis showed that the nurses' levels, title, duties and age were the important variables that affected their essential professional ability, professional management ability,professional coordination ability, individual development ability respectively. Conclusions The core competence of the surgical nurses working in the operation theatre in this investigation is at an good level. The levels,title, duties, and age are the influencing factors of their core competence.