Radiologist Salary in Los Angeles, CA 2026,
$488,670 Median | BLS + Market Data

Los Angeles radiologists earn a BLS median of $488,670/yr across the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim metro, with a published range from $96,420 at the 10th percentile to $496,790 at the 90th. That is 16.1% above the US median for the speciality. BLS counts 310 radiologists in the metro, a small counted workforce for a region of this size.

Substantially above — the metro sits 80.6% over the California statewide figure, an unusually large gap. State-level estimates for physician specialities are composed differently, with a heavier weighting toward academic and institutional employment across the rest of the state, which pulls the statewide figure down. Among peer metros Los Angeles sits below Phoenix at $525,930, and above Chicago at $479,910, Philadelphia at $452,940, San Antonio at $398,680 and Denver at $344,270.

Yes, and along with private group partnership it accounts for what sits at the very top of this range. Interventional and neurointerventional radiologists perform catheter-based procedures — embolisation, stroke thrombectomy, oncological intervention — requiring additional fellowship training and overnight call for services that must run continuously. The region's stroke, trauma and cancer centres depend on that coverage and compete nationally for a small pool of people able to provide it.

Through the Medical Board of California, which issues a general physician and surgeon licence rather than a radiology-specific one. The clinical route is a medical degree, a preliminary year, a four-year accredited diagnostic radiology residency, and in practice a subspecialty fellowship, with board certification through the American Board of Radiology. Licensure is statewide, and radiologists reading remotely for facilities in other states need licensure in each of those states as well.

Clinically it is excellent — a large private group sector, major academic and cancer institutions, high-volume trauma and stroke services, and subspecialty practice available across every area. Financially the picture is mixed: the metro pays 16.1% above the national median, but California's tax schedule and housing costs take a great deal of that back, and radiologists here are actively recruited by groups in no-tax states. The national shortage means the choice is genuinely open in a way it would not have been a decade ago.

The median, 75th and 90th percentiles in this record sit within about 2% of one another. Wage distributions spread out when employers can be selective and compress when they cannot. Radiology nationally has a documented supply shortage against rising imaging volumes, and groups across this region compete for the same candidates — so employers converge on approximately the market rate rather than spreading across a range. For an individual radiologist that is unusually useful: the median here is a directly applicable benchmark rather than a statistical midpoint.

310 radiologists is a small sample for a metro of this size, and it reflects how physicians are classified and employed — many practise as partners or contractors rather than as counted employees. That limits what can be said about workforce size. It limits the wage figures less than it might, because the tight clustering of the upper percentiles indicates a well-established market rate rather than a handful of unrepresentative observations. The 10th percentile at $96,420, by contrast, almost certainly reflects part-time and academic appointments and should not be read as full-time practice.

Radiology is unusually mobile: teleradiology has weakened the tie between where a radiologist lives and where they read, and the national shortage means groups everywhere are recruiting. That makes California's tax position a live competitive factor rather than an abstract one — the difference between this metro's after-tax outcome and a Texas group's at the same nominal figure is substantial. This region retains radiologists on the strength of its institutions, case complexity and lifestyle, and it has to, because the financial comparison alone does not favour it.