A locum neurologist in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho can bill $275 an hour, which annualizes to $572,000 (for those keeping score, that is more than most neurosurgeons quietly admit at dinner parties). Meanwhile, a full-time neurologist in Baton Rouge might start at $225,000. Same brain. Same board certification. Radically different zip code math. Across 394 active Neurology listings nationwide, the spread between the floor and the ceiling exceeds $370,000 per year. The Neurology job market in 2026 is deep, geographically diffuse, and quietly one of the more lucrative corners of clinical medicine — provided you know where the money actually lives.
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The Neurology Job Market at a Glance

Total listings: 394
Listings with disclosed salary: 60
Full national range: $200,000 – $572,000
National average range: $333,916 – $367,974
Typical full-time cluster: $293,000 – $475,000

Sixty listings out of 394 volunteered a salary figure. That is roughly 15% transparency, which in physician recruiting counts as almost aggressive candor.

The spread tells the real story. The floor sits at $200,000 (part-time and outlier territory) while the ceiling — driven by annualized locum hourly rates — punches above half a million. Between those poles, most credible full-time offers land in the low-to-mid $300s, with the strongest markets clearing $400,000.

States represented in the data: WA, LA, NY, ID, NV, NH, TX, IL, NJ, MO, FL, OH, VT, MD, CO, MA, MN, TN, IN, NC, WI, VA, AK, ND, GA, AZ, CA, OK, PA, CT, OR, SC, NE, MI, KY, WV, NM, SD, ME, AL, AR, RI, WY, KS, and MS.
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How States Stack Up

Overperformers:

• Idaho: $416,000 – $572,000. One listing, one locum rate, one very happy neurologist in Coeur d’Alene.
• Illinois: $396,667 – $409,167 across six disclosing listings — the most defensible top-tier market in the country.
• North Carolina: $400,000 flat, and 24 listings behind it.
• Georgia: $400,000 flat on a single disclosure, but paired with 16 listings.
• Maryland: $347,000 – $417,000, a wide but generous band.
• Kansas: $385,000, disclosed once, and firmly upper-tier.
• Nevada: $381,850 – $383,333 across three listings — quietly excellent.

Near-average:

• Washington: $321,304 – $389,073 (six disclosures, useful signal).
• Texas: $331,667 – $348,333.
• Connecticut: $306,667 – $341,667.
• Minnesota: $340,000 – $370,000.
• Vermont: $330,000 – $375,000.
• Missouri: $363,333 – $378,333.
• New York: $317,859 – $351,178 across 17 disclosing listings — the deepest transparent dataset in the country.
• Colorado: $370,000.
• New Hampshire: $320,000 – $360,000.

Underperformers:

• Tennessee: $290,000 – $310,000, the clear floor among states with more than one disclosure.
• Louisiana: $225,000 – $385,000, a spread wide enough to drive a truck through.
• Arizona: $260,000 – $350,000, trailing the benchmark on both ends.
• New Jersey: $300,000 – $316,667 (cost of living not included, unfortunately).
• Florida: $300,000 – $325,000 on one disclosure across 25 listings.
• Ohio: $300,000 – $335,000.
• Massachusetts: $300,000 – $350,000.

Volume leaders: Texas (28), New York (27), Florida (25), North Carolina (24), Indiana (16), Georgia (16), Missouri (15), Illinois (14), Arizona (13), South Carolina (13), Connecticut (12), Kentucky (12), New Hampshire (11), Wisconsin (11), Washington (10), Pennsylvania (10). Texas and Florida lead the country in listings and pay at or slightly below the national midpoint. Volume, in Neurology, is not a proxy for generosity.
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What This Means If You’re a Physician

If your priority is maximum compensation: The highest-paying full-time listings are tied at $425,000 – $475,000 — a CompHealth role in Olean, NY and a neurohospitalist position in Mattoon, IL. Neither city will appear in a lifestyle magazine. Both will appear in your bank account. Locum work in Coeur d’Alene, ID ($200–$275/hour, annualizing to $416,000 – $572,000) and Brooklyn, NY ($220/hour, annualizing to roughly $457,600) meaningfully outperforms most full-time offers.

If your priority is maximum optionality: Texas, New York, Florida, and North Carolina together account for 104 listings — more than a quarter of the national market.

If your priority is balance: Illinois and Missouri offer above-average pay with respectable volume. North Carolina pairs $400,000 averages with 24 openings, which is as close to a free lunch as this specialty gets.

One cost-of-living flag: New Jersey and Massachusetts both average around $300,000 on the low end. That is not a competitive number in those zip codes.
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What This Means If You’re a Recruiter

Salary transparency rate: 60 ÷ 394 = 15.2%. Roughly eight of every ten Neurology postings ask candidates to guess. That is a pipeline problem disguised as a policy.

Candidates now shop with comparison tools. Opaque listings get skipped, not clicked. Expect longer time-to-fill in Texas (28 listings, 3 disclosures), Florida (25 listings, 1 disclosure), and Indiana (16 listings, zero disclosures) until numbers appear on the page.

Volume-pay misalignment is real: Texas, Florida, and New York carry the most listings but sit at or below the national midpoint on pay. Recruiters in those markets cannot lead with compensation — they will need to lead with case mix, call structure, subspecialty support, and geography that candidates actually want to live in.
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What’s Driving the Numbers

Locum tenens is quietly setting the ceiling. The top annualized figures in the country — Coeur d’Alene at $572,000, Brooklyn at $457,600 — are hourly contracts, not W-2 offers. When hourly work outperforms permanent employment by six figures, the traditional employment model is being repriced in real time, whether hospital systems have noticed or not.

Scarcity commands a premium in small markets. Idaho (2 listings), Kansas (2 listings), and single-listing states like Maryland and Colorado punch well above their weight on compensation. Neurologists are structurally undersupplied, and rural markets are paying accordingly. Metropolitan prestige, meanwhile, is priced into the salary — downward.

The volume-pay relationship inverts. Texas and Florida, the second- and third-largest markets by listing count, sit below the national midpoint. Illinois, with half Texas’s volume, pays $60,000+ more on average. High listing counts often signal chronic turnover or saturated candidate supply — neither of which forces employers to open the checkbook.

Wide disclosed ranges distort the floor. Louisiana’s $225,000 – $385,000 single listing spans $160,000. That is not a salary — that is a negotiation invitation. Expect this pattern in any state where one or two postings carry the entire disclosure burden.

The Bottom Line

Neurology in 2026 is a specialty where the map matters more than the medicine. Nearly 400 open roles, a $370,000 spread between floor and ceiling, and a 15% transparency rate mean the physicians who read the data will out-earn the physicians who don’t — sometimes by the price of a house per year. The volume states are not the pay states. The pay states are not the lifestyle states. And the highest-paying work in the country is being done, hour by hour, by locums in towns most people cannot find on a map.

The best-paid neurologists in America are not in Manhattan or Miami — they are billing hourly in Coeur d’Alene, and they are not taking new friends.
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Salary data based on 60 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.