Pharmacist Salary in Massachusetts 2026,
$138,170 Median | BLS Data by City

Massachusetts pharmacists earn a median $138,170 a year, $66.43 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025, with the middle half between $133,460 and $155,490 and a full range of $113,710 to $164,500. That is 1.9% below the $140,910 national median, effectively level with the US market.

Barnstable Town at $150,850, then Amherst Town-Northampton at $140,650, Boston-Cambridge-Newton at $139,660, Springfield at $138,230 and Pittsfield at $137,910. Cape Cod leading Boston by over eleven thousand dollars is the most striking feature of the Massachusetts table.

Through the Board of Registration in Pharmacy at the Department of Public Health. You need a Doctor of Pharmacy degree from an accredited programme, the NAPLEX and the Massachusetts law examination, and the required internship hours. Licences renew on a set cycle with continuing education, and the Board also registers pharmacy technicians and licenses the pharmacies themselves.

Supply and seasonality. Barnstable Town serves a large older year-round population plus a summer influx that multiplies prescription volume, while the number of pharmacists willing to live on Cape Cod year-round is limited and Boston is not a practical commute. Boston, by contrast, has pharmacy schools, teaching hospitals and an industry sector all feeding a deep local pool, which holds its metro figure at $139,660.

It has made sterile compounding a genuine specialisation in this state. Massachusetts operates an active inspection and oversight regime for compounding pharmacies, with detailed requirements around sterile preparation practice, and pharmacists who can run a compliant compounding operation are in demand accordingly. It is one of the clearer routes toward the state 75th percentile of $155,490.

Because academic density cuts both ways. Boston's teaching hospitals, pharmacy schools and biotechnology sector produce and attract pharmacists continuously, which keeps the Greater Boston market well supplied and its metro figure at $139,660 — just above the state median. The premium in Massachusetts appears where supply is thin, which is Cape Cod and the western communities, not the city.

It excludes an important part of what pharmacists here actually do. A significant number of Massachusetts pharmacists work in biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies in medical affairs, clinical development and regulatory roles, and those positions may be classified outside SOC 29-1051 depending on the job's content. The $164,500 ninetieth percentile is a dispensing-and-clinical ceiling, not an industry one.

Specialisation, management and geography, in roughly equal measure. Clinical specialty practice, sterile compounding oversight and ambulatory care carry premiums that reach the state 75th percentile of $155,490, as does a pharmacy manager role. Beyond that, the $164,500 ninetieth percentile is management, industry work or a hard-to-staff market — and Cape Cod's $150,850 metro figure shows how much geography alone can be worth in this state.