Pediatrician Salary in Houston, TX 2026,
$124,190 Median | BLS + Market Data

BLS publishes a median of $124,190/yr for general paediatricians across the Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands metro, with a band from $73,300 to $377,000. That median is 40.9% below the US figure, and the reason is compositional: this metro's exceptionally large paediatric training population is counted in the same sample as practising consultants. BLS counts 1,040 paediatricians in the metro.

The metro figure sits 28.4% below the Texas statewide median, which is a strong signal that the metro sample is training-weighted rather than that paediatricians here are paid a third less than elsewhere in the state. Among peer metros Los Angeles at $176,900, Austin at $175,680, Denver at $173,950, Seattle at $165,350 and Atlanta at $149,990 all publish higher medians, and none hosts a paediatric training complex on this scale.

Yes, and they account for much of the space between the median and the $377,000 at the top of this band. Subspecialty paediatrics requires a three-year fellowship on top of residency, and this metro's tertiary children's services employ subspecialists across essentially every field. The awkward economics of the speciality still apply and paediatricians discuss them openly: several paediatric subspecialties pay less than adult equivalents despite equal or longer training, because paediatric volumes are lower and paediatric payer mix leans toward public insurance.

Through the Texas Medical Board, which issues a general physician licence — there is no paediatrics-specific credential. The clinical route is a medical degree, the national licensing examination sequence and a three-year accredited paediatrics residency, with board certification through the American Board of Pediatrics expected by essentially every employer here. Subspecialty practice requires a further three-year fellowship. Licensure is statewide, and Houston issues nothing municipal.

It is one of the best in the country clinically. The region hosts an exceptional concentration of paediatric medicine, from primary care through every subspecialty, and a paediatrician can train, subspecialise and practise without leaving the metro. The published figures on this page understate consultant earnings because of that same training concentration. Add no state income tax and moderate housing costs, and the practical position for a practising paediatrician here is considerably better than the median alone suggests.

This metro's paediatric training capacity is close to unmatched: a very large children's hospital, multiple residency and fellowship programmes, and a referral catchment covering an enormous region. Residents and fellows are employees on institutional stipends, and OEWS counts them in the same occupational sample as attending physicians. In a speciality this size locally, that is enough to move the published median down by tens of percent. It is a genuine limitation of the source rather than a defect, and the correct response is to read the upper percentiles alongside it rather than to treat the median as consultant pay.

Paediatrics is funded differently from adult medicine everywhere: children cost less to treat, so a paediatric panel generates less revenue than an adult one of the same size, and children are disproportionately covered by public insurance, which pays less than commercial cover. Those facts hold in Texas as elsewhere. What differs here is the offset — no state income tax and a cost of living well below coastal markets — and the demand side, since this region's population growth is producing children faster than most of the country. A flat national projection understates local need considerably.

For a paediatrician evaluating an offer, the useful reference points are the 75th percentile at $173,360 for established general practice and the $377,000 at the 90th for subspecialty and high-volume practice. The median on this page is not a benchmark for a consultant post and should not be used as one. This site publishes BLS figures exactly as released; where the sample composition makes a figure misleading as a market rate, the responsible approach is to say so plainly and point to the part of the distribution that answers the reader's actual question.