OB-GYN Salary in Houston, TX 2026,
$83,050 Median | BLS + Market Data

BLS publishes a median of $83,050/yr for obstetricians and gynecologists across the Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands metro, but that figure should not be read as consultant pay. The same record publishes a 75th percentile of $324,870 and a 90th percentile of $374,400, and the gap is the tell: the lower part of this distribution is dominated by residents and fellows, of which this metro has an unusually large number.

The published metro figure sits 69.5% below the Texas statewide median, which is itself evidence that the metro sample is training-heavy rather than that obstetricians here are paid less. Peer metro figures show how varied the classification effect is across areas: Los Angeles at $301,240, San Diego at $293,400 and San Antonio at $271,960 look like consultant distributions, while Chicago at $208,000 and San Francisco at $198,720 show the same downward pull Houston does.

Gynaecologic oncology and maternal-fetal medicine at the top, with reproductive endocrinology close behind in a metro that supports a substantial fertility sector. Each requires a three-year fellowship after residency and practises on referral, which concentrates the work in a small number of centres — and this metro has several of the largest. General obstetrics and gynaecology with full obstetric call sits below them, and gynaecology-only practice below that, trading income for the loss of overnight deliveries.

Through the Texas Medical Board, which issues a general physician licence rather than a speciality one. The clinical route is a medical degree, the national licensing examination sequence and a four-year accredited obstetrics and gynaecology residency, with board certification through the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology expected for hospital privileges. Subspecialty practice requires a further three-year fellowship. Licensure is statewide; Houston issues nothing additional, though hospitals credential separately.

No — use the upper percentiles. A consultant obstetrician benchmarking against $83,050 would reach a badly wrong conclusion, because that figure describes a different population. The 75th percentile at $324,870 is a more defensible reference for established consultant practice in this metro, with the $374,400 at the 90th percentile closer to subspecialty and high-volume practice. This page reports every figure exactly as BLS released it and explains what each is measuring, which is the only honest way to present a distribution shaped like this.

In a normal wage distribution the median sits between the quartiles with room on both sides. Here the 10th percentile at $72,000, the 25th at $73,450 and the median at $83,050 are clustered, and then the distribution jumps to $324,870 at the 75th. That pattern means a majority of the sampled obstetric payroll records in this metro are at training stipend levels, which are standardised institutional rates. Nothing in the source has been adjusted and nothing here is modelled — but presenting that median as a market wage would misinform readers, so this page does not.

The medical centre district here contains several major academic obstetric programmes alongside one of the largest children's hospitals in the world and high-volume maternal-fetal medicine services. That combination supports large residency and fellowship cohorts, which is excellent for the speciality and unhelpful for a wage survey. For a physician the practical reading is favourable: a metro with this much training infrastructure also has deep consultant demand, extensive subspecialty practice and an unusually broad set of career options without relocating.

Deliveries do not schedule themselves, and obstetric call is the defining burden of the speciality — it drives income, it drives burnout, and it is the main reason consultants move toward gynaecology-only practice mid-career. In this metro, group size and call rota structure vary enormously between private groups, academic departments and hospital-employed positions. Those details determine both compensation and sustainability far more than the headline figure in any offer, and they are the first thing an obstetrician evaluating a post here should interrogate.