Chemical Engineer Salary in Texas 2026,
$132,750 Median | BLS Data by City

The published Texas figure is $132,750 a year, or $63.82 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025 — 6.2% above the national median of $125,040 — with a band from $86,920 at the 10th percentile to $210,460 at the 90th. Texas is the densest chemical engineering market in the country, employing the profession at 1.37 times the national rate on a base of 2,610 engineers.

Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands at $138,120, then Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington $130,520, Beaumont-Port Arthur $129,850, Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos $129,790 and Corpus Christi $126,690. The spread across the top five is under twelve thousand dollars, which tells you that industry rate cards rather than metro cost of living set pay in this occupation — the Gulf Coast plant towns pay close to the corporate centres.

Most do not, because of the industrial exemption in Texas engineering law. An engineer employed by a manufacturer and working on that employer's own products, facilities and processes is generally exempt from the licence requirement, and since most Texas chemical engineers work for refiners, petrochemical producers and manufacturers, most practise without a PE. The Texas Board of Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors licence is required for engineers offering services to the public, consulting, or signing and sealing documents — which is why consulting careers here are effectively gated by it.

Refining and petrochemicals above all, concentrated along the Gulf Coast corridor from Corpus Christi through Houston to Beaumont-Port Arthur; specialty and industrial chemicals; LNG liquefaction, which has been the largest source of new project work in recent years; and a growing hydrogen and carbon capture segment. Engineering, procurement and construction contractors headquartered in Houston are a substantial employer in their own right, hiring process engineers for projects worldwide.

On the combination of density, pay and tax, it is difficult to beat. Texas holds roughly 12.4% of national employment at a location quotient of 1.37, pays 6.2% above the national median, and levies no state income tax — so a $132,750 gross here nets more than a higher gross in most alternatives. The trade-off is concentration risk: a career built entirely in Gulf Coast hydrocarbons is exposed to a sector undergoing a long transition, which is an argument for building project and process skills that transfer to LNG, hydrogen and carbon capture work.

Because the employer is often the same and the rate card is national. A process engineer at a Beaumont-Port Arthur refinery and one at a Houston corporate office frequently work for the same company on the same salary structure, adjusted lightly if at all for location. Corpus Christi at $126,690 and Beaumont-Port Arthur at $129,850 against Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands' $138,120 is a spread of about nine percent across markets with materially different living costs — which makes the plant towns the better real-income proposition for anyone willing to live in them.

It is a straight wage measure in an industry where turnaround and project work generates substantial overtime and per diem, and where bonus is a meaningful share of total compensation at senior levels. The contractor segment also complicates it: engineering, procurement and construction firms hire on project cycles with different compensation structures from operating companies, and both sit in the same wage row. And with 2,610 engineers in the state the sample is respectable but not large, so the metro cells should be read as approximate.

Capital project capability first — engineers who can carry a process design from concept through commissioning are the scarce resource in a state whose work is project-driven, and that is much of the distance from the $106,910 twenty-fifth percentile to the $167,750 seventy-fifth. Then sector, with LNG, specialty chemicals and hydrogen project work currently paying above mature refining. Then operating company versus contractor, which changes both the compensation structure and the travel. And then the PE licence, which is optional in industry under the exemption but is the gate to consulting practice.