Pest Control Technician Pay by Metro Area
Seattle pays $58,380 and Houston $37,200, a 57% spread wider than the gap between states. The largest employing metros pay least.
Pest control technicians earn a median of $58,380 in Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue and $37,200 in Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands, a spread of $21,180 or 57%. That gap between metro areas is wider than the gap between states. The largest employing metros are not the best paying: Houston, Dallas and Atlanta all sit in the bottom third while employing thousands.
State averages hide where the money actually is, because pest control is a metro-level labour market. We pulled BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics for 44 metropolitan areas to see how far apart they really are.
Key findings
- A $21,180 spread between the top and bottom metro, Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue at $58,380 against Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands at $37,200.
- Scale does not pay. The three largest employing metros in this set are Atlanta at 3,430, Dallas at 2,870 and New York at 4,380. Two of the three pay below the national median.
- Texas metros cluster at the bottom. Houston, San Antonio and Dallas all sit in the lowest paying group despite employing more than 5,700 technicians between them.
- West coast metros lead, with Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, San Francisco and San Jose taking the top three positions.
- The national median is $45,250, and 18 of 44 metros in this set pay above it.
The highest paying metro areas
| Rank | Metro area | Median annual wage | Employment | vs national median |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA | $58,380 | 670 | +29.0% |
| 2 | San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA | $53,380 | 1,210 | +18.0% |
| 3 | San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA | $53,050 | 590 | +17.2% |
| 4 | Denver-Aurora-Centennial, CO | $50,110 | 570 | +10.7% |
| 5 | New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ | $49,940 | 4,380 | +10.4% |
| 6 | Las Vegas-Henderson-North Las Vegas, NV | $49,240 | 540 | +8.8% |
| 7 | Sacramento-Roseville-Folsom, CA | $48,420 | 1,860 | +7.0% |
| 8 | Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD | $48,010 | 1,630 | +6.1% |
| 9 | San Diego-Chula Vista-Carlsbad, CA | $47,470 | 1,230 | +4.9% |
| 10 | Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA | $47,430 | 500 | +4.8% |
| 11 | Milwaukee-Waukesha, WI | $47,300 | 420 | +4.5% |
| 12 | Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE | $47,260 | 1,350 | +4.4% |
These figures are not adjusted for cost of living, and the top of this table is dominated by expensive housing markets. A technician earning $58,380 in Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue is not necessarily better off than one earning less elsewhere.
The lowest paying metro areas
| Rank | Metro area | Median annual wage | Employment | vs national median |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 35 | Columbus, OH | $40,460 | 500 | -10.6% |
| 36 | Memphis, TN-MS-AR | $39,860 | 650 | -11.9% |
| 37 | Oklahoma City, OK | $39,610 | 570 | -12.5% |
| 38 | Birmingham, AL | $39,300 | 660 | -13.1% |
| 39 | Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, GA | $38,920 | 3,430 | -14.0% |
| 40 | Indianapolis-Carmel-Greenwood, IN | $38,740 | 590 | -14.4% |
| 41 | Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX | $38,330 | 2,870 | -15.3% |
| 42 | Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI | $37,450 | 570 | -17.2% |
| 43 | San Antonio-New Braunfels, TX | $37,410 | 730 | -17.3% |
| 44 | Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands, TX | $37,200 | 2,170 | -17.8% |
The pattern here matches what we found at state level. Warm, humid, high-demand markets pay least, because they are also the most competitive. Our Market Density Index shows Florida carrying 9.85 pest control establishments per 100,000 residents against Minnesota’s 1.80, and the correlation between market density and pay is negative.
Why the biggest markets pay the least
Atlanta employs 3,430 pest control workers, more than any metro in this set except New York, at a median of $38,920. Houston employs 2,170 at $37,200, the lowest in the set.
Two mechanisms plausibly drive this and the data here cannot separate them. High pest pressure creates deep demand, which attracts operators, which compresses contract prices, and labour absorbs it. And a large local labour pool reduces the premium any single employer needs to pay.
The inverse holds at the top. Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue employs 670, a small workforce for a metro of its size, and pays $58,380. Thin markets short of certified applicators pay up to keep them. We found the same inverse relationship at state level in our technician pay breakdown.
What this means if you are hiring
Wage competition is local, not national. An operator in Houston benchmarking against the $45,250 national median is benchmarking against the wrong number, because the local market is $8,050 below it.
The harder comparison is against other trades in the same metro, since that is who you actually lose candidates to. Nationally, general maintenance and repair work pays 9.6% more than pest control with roughly fifteen times as many openings and no certification requirement, covered in our analysis of the trade pay gap.
For operators weighing where to expand, pay is only one side. Our opportunity index weights competitive headroom, labour affordability and market scale together, and it puts Ohio first and Florida 46th.
Methodology
Figures are from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics programme, May 2025, occupation code SOC 37-2021 Pest Control Workers, cross-industry, at metropolitan statistical area level. Retrieved through the BLS public API v2 using series of the form OEUM00<CBSA code>000000372021<datatype>, datatype 13 for annual median wage and 01 for employment.
We queried 44 large metropolitan areas and report those where BLS publishes a median wage. Employment is shown where published; BLS suppresses some metro employment cells.
Data limitations
- Not adjusted for cost of living. The highest paying metros are also among the most expensive places to live, so these are not comparable purchasing power figures.
- Occupation, not industry. These count people whose job is pest control work, not everyone employed by pest control companies. The two populations differ by roughly 36,000 nationally.
- Wages are not total compensation. OEWS covers straight-time gross pay including commission but excludes employer-paid benefits, vehicle use and overtime premiums, which matter in route work.
- Metro boundaries are wide. A metropolitan statistical area can span very different local labour markets.
- Some cells are suppressed. Where BLS does not publish employment for a metro, the wage figure is still shown.
Frequently asked questions
Which metro area pays pest control technicians the most?
Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue at a median of $58,380 a year, followed by San Francisco and San Jose. The lowest in our set is Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands at $37,200, a spread of $21,180. These figures are not adjusted for cost of living.
Do bigger pest control markets pay more?
No, generally the opposite. Atlanta, Dallas and Houston are among the largest employing metros and all pay below the national median of $45,250. High pest pressure attracts operators, competition compresses contract prices, and a large local labour pool reduces the premium employers must pay.
How much do pest control technicians make in Texas metros?
Texas metros cluster near the bottom of this set. Houston pays a median of $37,200, San Antonio $37,410 and Dallas $38,330, all below the $45,250 national median, despite employing more than 5,700 technicians between them.
Should I use national or local wage data when hiring?
Local. Wage competition happens in the metro labour market, so benchmarking a Houston role against the $45,250 national median overstates the local rate by several thousand dollars. The more useful comparison is against other trades in the same metro, since that is who candidates actually leave for.
Sources
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, SOC 37-2021, metropolitan statistical area level. Retrieved via the BLS public API v2. bls.gov/oes
- U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns 2023, NAICS 561710, for establishment density context.