Surgical Tech Salary 2026
Surgical techs earn a median of $64,650 (BLS, May 2025), ranging from $45,940 to $96,940. See what moves you up that range and what contract work pays.
Surgical Tech Salary: What Scrub Techs Actually Earn
$64,650 a year is the midpoint for surgical techs, or $31.08 an hour, on May 2025 BLS wage data. Set against the $50,980 median for all US occupations, that is a 27 percent premium.
The spread matters more than the median here. The gap between the bottom tenth and the top tenth is $51,000, which is a wider range relative to the midpoint than most healthcare professions have.
The Full Range
- Bottom 10 percent
- Under $45,940
- New graduates, dental surgery, rural
- 25th percentile
- $54,690
- First two or three years
- Median
- $64,650
- The surgical technologist salary most quoted
- 75th percentile
- $79,750
- Experience, a named specialty, or an expensive metro
- Top 10 percent
- Over $96,940
- Cardiovascular, trauma, lead roles, contract work
The BLS mean sits at $68,710, above the median. When the mean runs ahead of the midpoint it means the top of the range is pulling hard, and on this page it means specialty and contract work are doing the pulling. In surgical tech hourly pay terms the median works out at $31.08.
Scrub tech salary, surgical technician salary and surgery tech salary all describe the same figure. BLS reports the occupation once, under surgical technologists.
Setting
Setting Barely Changes the Number
Most pay guides imply that choosing the right workplace will transform your earnings. For surgical technologists it mostly will not, and the BLS medians show why.
- Hospitals
- $65,020
- Where 37 percent of surgical techs work
- Outpatient care centers
- $64,670
- Scheduled lists, no overnight call
- Offices of physicians
- $64,590
- Day hours, smaller teams
- Offices of dentists
- $48,190
- The one real outlier, $16,830 below hospitals
$430 separates hospitals from physician offices. For comparison, physical therapists see a $17,580 gap between their best and worst paying settings. Changing setting is a lifestyle decision for a surgical tech, not a pay decision.
The exception is dental, at $48,190. That is $16,830 below the hospital median and $16,460 below the national figure for the occupation. If you are in an oral surgery practice wondering why the published numbers look high, that is your answer.
What does move the number is specialty, experience and whether you work contract. Cardiovascular, trauma and transplant are consistently harder to staff than general surgery and price accordingly.
Starting Pay for a Surgical Tech
Starting pay for surgical tech work is the question most people ask before they commit to the training, and it deserves a straight answer rather than the national median.
New surgical techs land in the lower quarter of the range. In practice that means somewhere around $45,940 to $54,690, with location and the kind of surgery you scrub deciding where in that band you sit.
That is the part of the range people underestimate when they look at the headline. It is also the part that moves fastest. Surgical tech pay rises more steeply in the first five years than in most allied health professions, because specialty experience is what facilities are short of and you cannot get it before you start.
Entry on a certificate rather than a degree is what makes this profession accessible. It is also why the bottom of the range is lower than in professions with doctoral entry, and why the climb out of it is quicker.
For anyone weighing a longer course instead, ultrasound tech salary reaches a $96,590 median on an associate degree — the highest of the imaging professions we staff.
Does the CST Credential Change What You Earn?
There is no official figure for a certified surgical technologist salary. BLS reports the occupation as one group, so any site quoting a precise certified number is estimating it. What can be verified is that thirteen states write minimum education or certification standards into law, and most hospital requisitions elsewhere ask for the CST regardless.
The practical effect is on access rather than on rate. An uncertified tech is competing for a much shorter list of openings, and contract work in particular almost always specifies certification. The credential widens what you can apply for, which is what eventually moves the number.
Why a Travel Rate and a Salary Are Not the Same Number
Everything above this point is staff employment. Travel surgical tech salary gets quoted as a weekly total, and that total has two halves. One is an hourly base that tax and retirement are calculated on. The other is housing and meal money that is not taxed.
The untaxed half is not wages and it is conditional. It applies only where you genuinely keep a tax home somewhere else. Take it without one and you may be accepting money you later owe back.
Three questions settle whether a contract beats a salary. What is the hourly base on its own? What is the stipend assuming about where you live? And is call inside the rate or on top of it? The last one carries more weight in this profession than most, because a heavy rota reshapes the week far more than the headline figure does.
What would a contract actually pay you?
Send us your specialties, your certification and where you can work. You get a real figure for your situation, not a national average.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much do surgical techs make?
The national median is $64,650 a year, $31.08 an hour, from BLS data for May 2025. One in ten surgical techs earns under $45,940 and one in ten clears $96,940. Against the $50,980 median for all US occupations, that is a 27 percent premium.
Which states pay surgical techs the most?
Hawaii leads on a median of $82,640, followed by Oregon at $81,390 and California at $81,310. All three are also among the most expensive states to live in, so the premium is smaller in practice than the ranking suggests.
Do travel surgical techs earn more?
Weekly totals on travel contracts generally beat a staff salary, but they are not the same kind of number. Part of a travel package is a taxed hourly base and part is untaxed housing and meal money, and the untaxed part depends on you keeping a tax home elsewhere. Judge the base, not the headline.
Is a surgical assistant the same as a surgical technologist?
Surgical assistants and surgical technologists are different roles with different pay. BLS reports surgical assistants at a $66,800 median against $64,650 for surgical technologists in May 2025. The assistant role carries broader intraoperative responsibility and a separate credential, so figures quoting the combined $64,700 average cover both.
Every figure here is drawn from BLS OEWS May 2025 under SOC 29-2055 and from the Occupational Outlook Handbook, both linked above. Last reviewed October 2026.