Dallas-Fort Worth Compensation Benchmarks 2026
Dallas-Fort Worth does not pay one premium. Across 155 major occupations it runs -2.1% against national medians on average, but that average hides a spread of 22.2 points between the best-paid and worst-paid occupation groups in this metro.
Which means the shortcut most pay structures rely on, a single Dallas-Fort Worth geographic adjustment factor, is wrong in both directions at once: it underpays the roles this market values and overpays relative to market on the roles it does not.
Computed from BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, for Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX (CBSA 19100). 661 occupations carry metro-level data; 155 have Dallas-Fort Worth employment above 5,000 and are used here. Free to read, free to use, no account required.
Dallas-Fort Worth pay by occupation group
Median wage vs national · employment-weighted within group
→ Community & Social Service at +5.2% and Life, Physical & Social Science at -17.0%. Same metro, same month, 22.2 points apart.
Where Dallas-Fort Worth pays more
Largest premium vs national median
Where Dallas-Fort Worth pays less
Largest discount vs national median
The ten roles Dallas-Fort Worth employs most
Metro median vs national median · annualised at 2,080 hours
| Role | Dallas-Fort Worth | National | Gap | Jobs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| General and Operations Managers | $111,010 | $105,768 | +5.0% | 125K |
| Stockers and Order Fillers | $37,586 | $37,336 | +0.7% | 111K |
| Retail Salespersons | $33,405 | $35,422 | -5.7% | 100K |
| Customer Service Representatives | $44,990 | $44,782 | +0.5% | 97K |
| Laborers and Freight, Stock, and Material Movers, Hand | $38,522 | $40,248 | -4.3% | 82K |
| Registered Nurses | $101,421 | $97,552 | +4.0% | 77K |
| Software Developers | $133,286 | $135,990 | -2.0% | 67K |
| Cashiers | $29,910 | $32,885 | -9.0% | 65K |
| Home Health and Personal Care Aides | $26,894 | $35,797 | -24.9% | 59K |
| Heavy and Tractor-Trailer Truck Drivers | $59,530 | $58,635 | +1.5% | 56K |
What named Dallas-Fort Worth employers file for the same job
US Department of Labor H-1B filings · FY2026 Q3 (decisions 1 Oct 2025 to 30 Jun 2026) · 35,452 certified Dallas-Fort Worth filings from 6,982 employers
Market data tells you the range; it never tells you who pays what. Employer wage filings do. Taking one role, Software Developers, and only employers with 12+ Dallas-Fort Worth filings in it, the same job in the same metro is filed anywhere from the 12th to the 86th percentile of the market range on this page:
| Employer | Filings | Median filed | vs Dallas-Fort Worth market |
|---|---|---|---|
| PricewaterhouseCoopers Advisory Services LLC | 15 | $175,000 | P86 |
| Salesforce, Inc. | 57 | $172,168 | P83 |
| AT&T SERVICES, INC. | 133 | $165,719 | P77 |
| BNSF Railway Company | 27 | $165,000 | P76 |
| Capital One Services, LLC | 61 | $162,100 | P73 |
| Verizon Data Services LLC | 36 | $160,979 | P72 |
| NavoInfo Inc. | 16 | $88,000 | P12 |
| Raven Software Solutions Inc | 15 | $90,896 | P14 |
| TechVirtue LLC | 13 | $90,900 | P14 |
→ 74 percentile points between named employers, inside one role, inside one metro. A candidate moving between two of these companies is not moving within a band; they are changing markets.
Median filed by role · where it sits on the Dallas-Fort Worth OEWS curve
What this data is, and is not. These are base salaries stated on Labor Condition Applications for visa-sponsored roles, floored by prevailing-wage rules: offered pay on a legal form, not a payroll extract, and base only, no bonus or equity. It shows how an employer positions pay for a role. Source: US Department of Labor, Office of Foreign Labor Certification disclosure files, FY2026 Q3 (decisions 1 Oct 2025 to 30 Jun 2026). Employers keyed on federal tax ID; role medians computed only where an employer has 12 or more Dallas-Fort Worth filings in that occupation. Metro membership is by worksite county in the OMB delineation BLS uses for this metro.
Method, and one exclusion worth naming
Each Dallas-Fort Worth occupation is compared to its own national median from the same BLS survey vintage, so the comparison holds the job constant. Group figures are employment-weighted, meaning a group is driven by the roles Dallas-Fort Worth actually employs rather than by an unweighted average across job titles.
Tipped occupations are excluded. BLS reports cash wages for tipped roles, and most of the variation between metros comes from state tip-credit law rather than local pay levels. Texas applies the federal tipped minimum, while the national median is lifted by states that require full minimum wage before tips, so tipped roles would show discounts that are legal, not local. Waiters, bartenders and similar roles are left out for that reason.
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, for Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX (CBSA 19100). Employer-reported wages from approximately 1.1 million surveyed establishments. Analysis by CompSignal; the underlying figures are BLS, the comparison and commentary are ours.
Run this on your own roles
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