Surgical Technologist Salary in Texas 2026,
$65,220 Median | BLS Data by City

The published Texas figure is $65,220 a year, or $31.35 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025, with a band from $39,950 at the 10th percentile to $92,580 at the 90th and quartiles at $50,100 and $80,790. That is 0.9% above the national median of $64,650, and Texas levies no state income tax on it. The row is SOC 29-2055, an exact match to the occupation.

In practical terms yes, through an unusual mechanism. Texas does not license the occupation, but state health and safety law requires health care facilities to employ surgical technologists who hold a recognised certification, subject to limited statutory exceptions — including where a facility cannot fill a position with a certified candidate. The obligation sits on the employer rather than the individual, but the result for a job seeker is that certification is what gets hired.

Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington at $79,990, well ahead of Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos $73,810, Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands $71,050, Longview $66,210 and Waco $66,020. The gap between Dallas and Houston is striking given that both are very large hospital markets, and it is the widest metro premium in this Texas unit.

The published data cannot answer this definitively, so treat what follows as the most consistent reading rather than a measured finding. Dallas-Fort Worth has a dense concentration of high-volume specialty hospitals and ambulatory surgical centres competing for certified technologists, and because Texas law requires facilities to hire certified staff, the supply cannot expand faster than the accredited programme pipeline allows. A concentrated demand shock meeting a credential-constrained supply produces exactly the sort of premium the $79,990 figure represents.

Specialisation and the first assistant track. The $80,790 seventy-fifth percentile and $92,580 ninetieth are cardiothoracic, neurosurgical, transplant and robotic specialisation, plus surgical first assistant roles which carry additional certification and a substantially expanded scope in the operating room. Lead technologist and surgical services coordination roles reach the same territory through a different route — instrument and preference card management, staffing and training rather than clinical specialisation.

Because it produces the effect of licensure without any of its machinery, and candidates often misread it. There is no Texas surgical technologist board, no state examination and no state renewal cycle — someone researching 'Texas surgical technologist licence' will find nothing and may conclude the state is unregulated. But health and safety law requires facilities to employ certified technologists, with limited exceptions, so the credential is enforced through hospital hiring rather than through a licensing agency. The supply consequences are the same as licensure's: entry is constrained by accredited programme capacity, and that constraint is part of why Texas leads its peer group on wages and why the Dallas premium can be as large as it is.

The $39,950 tenth percentile against a $65,220 median is a large gap, and setting is the most likely explanation. Ambulatory surgical centres and smaller facilities in rural and small-metro Texas pay materially less than the large urban hospital systems, and the statutory exception permitting a facility to employ an uncertified technologist where a certified one cannot be found probably concentrates in exactly those markets. Longview at $66,210 and Waco at $66,020 are mid-sized metros still sitting above the state median, which suggests the sub-median employment is in places too small to publish at all.

The programme is a substantial but not enormous commitment — typically a one to two year accredited course — and Texas's combination of a leading peer-group median, no income tax and a statutory certification requirement that constrains supply is genuinely favourable. The considerations against are the physical demands of the role, the on-call and early-start scheduling that operating rooms require, and a ceiling at $92,580 beyond which progression means moving into surgical first assisting, sterile processing management or a different clinical qualification. The Dallas-Fort Worth market at $79,990 is the strongest single opportunity the published data identifies.