The pre-stressed high-stress concrete （PHC） nodular pile can promote the bearing capacity owing to the nodules along the pile shaft. Nevertheless， the PHC nodular pile installation process will induce more severe disturbance to the surrounding soil， which reduces its bearing capacity. To analyze and study the bearing capacity of PHC nodular piles embedded in soft soil， the finite element software ABAQUS was adopted to simulate the load-displacement response of PHC nodular piles under compression based on the field tests. The test and simulation results show that： the soil around the nodular pile was largely disturbed during the PHC nodular pile installation process， and the strength of the soil around the PHC nodular pile was only 1/2 of the strength of intact soil after the nodular pile was installed for 40 days， and the ultimate bearing capacity of PHC nodular pile was much higher than the ultimate bearing capacity of PHC pipe pile when the strength of soil around the pile was fully recovered. The nodule size shows larger effect on the lateral resistance of nodule piles， and the increase of nodular diameter in some range can significantly increase the ultimate compressive capacity of PHC nodule piles， and there is an optimal nodular diameter， which results in the highest compressive bearing capacity per unit volume concrete of PHC nodular pile.