Surgical Technician Salary

Salary Variables

Surgical technologist salaries range from about $24,000 to $46,000 a year for full-time work, according the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. As is the case for most professions, pay can be dramatically affected by factors such as geography, employee credentials and experience, and employer type and size. If you're willing to relocate to a new city, and if you do your homework in researching which types of employers are looking for surgical technologists, you can soon be earning in the upper ranges of the pay rate.

In April 2007, the median salary for a surgical technologist (ST) in the United States was $37,939, with salaries varying widely from state to state. For example, STs earned more— $21.47 per hour, or approximately $44,658 per year—in California, where the cost of living is much higher than in most other states. In Tennessee, STs earned an average of $14.85 ($30,888), and in Texas they earned $16.83 ($35,006).

City size also factors into surgical tech salaries. Generally speaking, the more populous the metropolitan area, the higher the salary. STs working in Houston, the fourth most populous city in the United States, not only make almost $1.50 per hour more than their counterparts elsewhere in Texas, they also earn $2.50 per hour more than STs in Atlanta, a city with the 34th largest population base in the county. The following graph compares median hourly pay for surgical technologists in seven US cities.