Radiologic Technologist Salary in Wisconsin 2026,
$79,140 Median | BLS Data by City

The published figure is $79,140 a year, or $38.05 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025 for SOC 29-2034, with a band from $61,870 at the 10th percentile to $99,420 at the 90th. That is 1.2% below the national median of $80,110. The middle half of Wisconsin technologists earn between $67,490 and $88,210, and the upper part of that range is cross-modality rather than general radiography.

No. Wisconsin has no licence, board or state registration for radiologic technologists. What employers and payers require is certification and registration by the American Registry of Radiologic Technologists, earned through a JRCERT-accredited programme and a national examination, with accreditation standards enforcing it. A technologist moving into Wisconsin can start as soon as employer credentialling clears.

Madison, at $80,920, then Milwaukee-Waukesha $80,180, Racine-Mount Pleasant $79,960, Green Bay $78,520 and Appleton $77,860. The five span only about $3,000, which reflects large integrated health systems setting imaging pay on grade scales benchmarked across the state rather than by local market.

By adding ARRT post-primary credentials, because the state provides no licence tiers to differentiate anyone. CT, MRI, mammography, vascular-interventional and cardiac-interventional registrations are what move a technologist from the $79,140 median toward the $88,210 seventy-fifth percentile, and interventional and lead roles are what reach the $99,420 ninetieth.

A location quotient of 1.15 across 5,010 jobs means the state employs them at about fifteen per cent above the national rate for its size. That reflects a dense network of integrated health systems operating across the whole state — Milwaukee, Madison, the Fox Valley, Green Bay and the western regional systems — plus a substantial outpatient imaging sector serving an ageing and geographically dispersed population.

Mobility and paperwork, mostly, rather than who gets hired. Every Wisconsin hospital and imaging centre requires ARRT registration, and payer credentialling enforces it, so the workforce looks like a licensed state's. What differs is that there is no state application, fee or renewal cycle, and no gap between accepting a post and starting it — a real advantage for a technologist relocating in. The reverse is also true: a Wisconsin technologist moving to a licensure state holds only the ARRT registration, since there is no state credential to reciprocate, and must apply through that state's board like any new entrant.

It is straight-time, and it pools modalities that do not pay alike. BLS excludes shift differentials, call and callback pay, all of which are standard in Wisconsin hospital imaging and substantial for technologists covering overnight CT and interventional work. The row also counts general radiographers alongside CT and MRI technologists and interventional imaging staff, whose base rates genuinely differ — which is exactly what produces a band from $61,870 to $99,420. Reading the median as the rate for any one of those jobs would mislead.

Call, above all. Wisconsin's hospital network is geographically dispersed, and many facilities outside the largest metros cover overnight CT and interventional imaging with call rather than staffed shifts — so a technologist carries a standby premium plus callback pay on top of base, none of it in the published figure. Second, because there is no state licence, cross-training into a new modality is limited only by an employer's willingness to fund the clinical hours, which makes it a negotiable term rather than a regulatory hurdle. Third, the state's outpatient imaging expansion has created genuine competition for CT and MRI registrations in the Madison and Milwaukee markets.