The highest-paying Surgery listing in the country right now is not in Manhattan, Beverly Hills, or some gleaming academic medical center. It is in Smithtown, New York — a Suffolk County hamlet best known for a bronze bull statue — where CompHealth is offering $575,000 a year to cut. Meanwhile, 40 miles southwest in Elizabeth, New Jersey, a locum posting pays $120 an hour (annualized: $249,600) for what is presumably the same anatomy. Across 146 total Surgery listings nationwide, only 13 disclose compensation. The thesis is simple: Surgery pays extraordinarily well, but the market is playing an elaborate game of hide-the-number.
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The Surgery Job Market at a Glance

Total listings: 146
Listings with disclosed salary: 13
Full national range: $249,600 to $575,000
National average range: $390,208 to $438,469

The spread here — a $325,400 gap between floor and ceiling — is the kind of variance you would expect if the same job title were being applied to wildly different roles. Which it is. A general surgeon covering a rural weekend shift and a fully credentialed subspecialist running a Long Island OR are both technically “Surgery.” The market prices them accordingly.

States represented: NY, CA, NJ, MA, WI, WV, NC, AZ, TX, GA, MN, IL, FL, NE, NM, IA, AR, KY, CT, MS, VT, TN, VA, OK, KS, MD, ME, AL, OH, LA, WY, IN, PA, SD, SC, NV, CO, MO, MI, and OR.

Forty states. Thirteen salaries. Do the math on that ratio and you begin to understand why physicians hate job boards.
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How States Stack Up

Overperformers:

• Minnesota — a single disclosed listing at $500,000 to $550,000 quietly wins the country on a per-capita-of-transparency basis.
• New York — $430,021 to $476,099 across five disclosed listings, and it houses both national ceiling entries.
• Vermont — $425,000 to $450,000, which is not what most people expect from a state better known for maple syrup and Subarus.

Near-average:

• Ohio — $373,000 to $545,000, a range wide enough to be either a bargain or a windfall.
• California — $350,000 to $400,000 in Arcata, which is a redwood town on the far northern coast (adjust cost-of-living expectations accordingly).

Underperformers:

• Connecticut — $300,000 to $350,000, the lowest disclosed range in the country.
• New Jersey — $324,867 to $341,533 across three listings, dragged down by that Elizabeth locum floor.

Volume leaders: North Carolina (15), New Mexico (14), Texas (12), Arizona (7), Arkansas (7). None disclosed a single salary figure. Not one.
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What This Means If You’re a Physician

If your priority is maximum compensation: The ceiling is a CompHealth Surgery role in Smithtown, NY at $575,000, with a companion West Islip listing at $565,494. Long Island is not cheap, but neither is that number.

If your priority is maximum optionality: North Carolina (15), New Mexico (14), and Texas (12) offer the deepest pipelines. Expect to pick up the phone. Nobody is publishing salaries in those markets.

If your priority is balance: Minnesota and New York give you both compensation clarity and volume. Watch the cost-of-living mismatch in Connecticut and New Jersey, where sub-$350,000 offers meet some of the highest state tax burdens in the country. That is a compensation gap worth scrutinizing before you sign anything.
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What This Means If You’re a Recruiter

Salary transparency rate: 13 of 146 listings, or 8.9%.

That is not a benchmark. That is a black box.

Candidate pipelines respond to specificity. When 91.1% of Surgery listings withhold compensation, sourced physicians self-select into the postings that show a number — which right now favors the Northeast and Minnesota. High-volume states with zero disclosure (North Carolina, New Mexico, Texas, Arizona, Arkansas) are competing for attention against listings that already told the candidate what the job pays.

If you cannot lead with compensation, lead with something else: call schedule, subspecialty scope, loan assistance, partnership track, or geography. Silence about salary reads as either “we cannot compete” or “we will not commit.” Neither helps you close.
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What’s Driving the Numbers

Scope and geography command a premium. The top two national listings — Smithtown and West Islip — are both on Long Island, both from the same recruiter, and both crack $565,000. Suburban New York surgical demand is pricing well above the national average, likely reflecting a mix of case complexity, hospital consolidation, and the simple fact that fewer surgeons want to commute the Long Island Expressway.

Part-time and locum roles distort the floor. The $249,600 annualized figure out of Elizabeth, NJ is a $120/hour locum rate — a per-diem contract dressed up as an annual number. Strip that out and the New Jersey average looks materially different. The floor of this market is not a full-time salary. It is a shift rate wearing a costume.

Underserved markets are not (yet) pricing in scarcity. New Mexico, Arkansas, and rural North Carolina should, in theory, be paying premiums to attract surgical talent. Instead they are declining to price at all. Whether that reflects locum-heavy staffing models or a strategic refusal to anchor negotiations upward, the effect is the same: candidates skip the listing.

The volume-pay relationship is broken. Normally, high listing counts signal either strong demand (higher pay) or high turnover (lower pay). Here, the five highest-volume states disclose nothing, so the relationship is unmeasurable. That is itself the finding.

The Bottom Line

Surgery in 2026 is a market of loud demand and quiet numbers. There are 146 open roles, a ceiling north of half a million dollars, and a compensation floor that is really just a locum rate in disguise. The states publishing salaries are winning candidate attention. The states with the most jobs are winning nothing yet. Physicians who negotiate hard, compare regions, and ignore the marketing copy will find the money. Everyone else will find a phone number and a recruiter’s voicemail.

There is a lot of money in Surgery. You just have to ask three times to see it.

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Salary data based on 13 listings with disclosed compensation. Figures may reflect part-time or specialized roles. This report is informational and should not replace professional judgment or financial planning.