Two surgical positions in California’s Central Valley — Modesto and Stockton, neither typically confused with Beverly Hills — are currently advertising up to $650,000 a year. That is the ceiling of a national Surgery market that stretches across 38 states and 138 active listings, only 18 of which bothered to disclose what they actually pay. The spread between the highest and lowest disclosed salary is $350,000, which is itself a respectable surgeon’s salary in some zip codes. The data shows a specialty where demand is everywhere, transparency is rare, and the highest-paying jobs are not where you would guess.
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The Surgery Job Market at a Glance

Total listings: 138
Listings with disclosed salary: 18
Full national range: $300,000 – $650,000
National average range: $383,919 – $466,694

The spread is wide enough to drive a surgical residency program through. A surgeon walking into this market can credibly expect anything from $300,000 in Lompoc to $650,000 in Stockton, which are roughly four hours apart by car and apparently several universes apart by compensation philosophy. The middle of the market — the $383,919 to $466,694 average — is a respectable, unglamorous number that most listings cluster around when they cluster at all.

States represented: California, New York, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Tennessee, Wisconsin, New Mexico, West Virginia, Maine, Indiana, Iowa, Illinois, Alaska, Missouri, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, New Jersey, South Dakota, Minnesota, Virginia, Texas, Ohio, Mississippi, Kentucky, Utah, Washington, Montana, Arizona, Connecticut, Vermont, Colorado, South Carolina, Wyoming, Michigan, Florida, and New Hampshire.
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How States Stack Up

Overperformers:

• Massachusetts — $550,000 flat, the highest disclosed state average, on a single listing that is doing a lot of heavy lifting.
• Minnesota — $500,000 to $550,000, quietly outearning most coastal markets without making a fuss about it.
• California — $370,610 to $512,500 across four reporting listings, dragged upward by those Central Valley outliers.
• Ohio — $373,000 to $545,000, the widest in-state range on the board and a reminder that “Ohio” is not a single labor market.

Near-average:

• Illinois — $418,333 to $455,000, the closest thing this report has to a textbook benchmark.
• New York — $356,277 to $466,374, almost perfectly tracking the national mean (and starting at $300,000 on the low end, which in Manhattan is a lifestyle question).

Underperformers:

• Connecticut — $300,000 to $350,000, roughly $83,000 below the national floor.
• Vermont — $300,000 to $350,000, matching Connecticut and pricing in the maple syrup discount.
• New Jersey — $362,500 to $387,500, sitting precisely at the national floor and not a dollar higher.

Volume leaders: New Mexico (15), Wisconsin (10), Indiana (7), Iowa (7), Arkansas (7), North Carolina (6), California (6). Of those seven, only California disclosed any salary data at all. The states with the most surgical demand are also the states telling candidates the least about what they will earn.
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What This Means If You’re a Physician

If your priority is maximum compensation: Look at Modesto, CA and Stockton, CA, both listing up to $650,000 — the highest disclosed figures in the country. Massachusetts ($550,000) and Minnesota ($500,000–$550,000) follow closely with fewer listings to compete for.

If your priority is maximum optionality: New Mexico (15 listings), Wisconsin (10), and the cluster of Indiana, Iowa, Arkansas, and North Carolina (6–7 each) offer breadth. The catch: none of them disclosed salary, so you are negotiating in the dark.

If your priority is balance: Illinois and New York deliver disclosed pay near the national average with multiple listings to choose from.

A flag worth raising: California contains both the highest-paying ($650,000 in Stockton) and the lowest-paying ($300,000 in Lompoc) listings in the entire dataset. Same state, same licensing board, same malpractice environment — and a $350,000 gap. Read the scope details before you read the zip code.
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What This Means If You’re a Recruiter

Salary transparency rate: 18 ÷ 138 = 13%.

Eighty-seven percent of Surgery listings in this market disclose nothing about compensation. That is a pipeline problem before it is a negotiation problem — surgeons with options filter on dollars, and a blank field reads as a low offer until proven otherwise.

The volume-pay misalignment is stark. New Mexico, Wisconsin, Indiana, Iowa, Arkansas, and North Carolina collectively account for more than a third of all national listings and zero disclosed salaries. If those markets are paying competitively, candidates cannot tell. Recruiters in these states will need to lead with case mix, call structure, signing bonuses, loan repayment, and lifestyle — because they have ceded the compensation conversation by default.
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What’s Driving the Numbers

Transparency is the story, not salary. With only 13% of listings showing a number, the “national average” is built on a sliver of self-selected data. The headline figures are directionally useful and statistically fragile. Every recruiter who discloses pay gains an immediate signaling advantage over the 87% who do not.

Geography is not destiny, but it is misleading. Massachusetts and Minnesota lead on average pay; California leads on ceiling and volume simultaneously; Connecticut and Vermont anchor the floor. The states most associated with prestige medicine (New York, in particular) are landing squarely on the national average, not above it.

Underserved markets are not visibly pricing in scarcity. Conventional wisdom says rural and high-volume states like New Mexico and Wisconsin should be paying premiums to attract surgeons. The data cannot confirm or deny this, because those states are not posting numbers. The premium may exist; it is simply invisible.

The volume-pay relationship breaks here. The states with the most listings disclose the least, and the states with the highest disclosed pay (Massachusetts, Minnesota) have only two listings each. High demand and high pay are not currently traveling together in any legible way.

The Bottom Line

Surgery in 2026 is a market with real money, real demand, and a remarkable institutional reluctance to write either of those facts down. The disclosed range stretches from $300,000 to $650,000, the average sits in the mid-$400,000s, and the highest ceiling in the country belongs to two cities in California’s Central Valley rather than to any coastal academic center. Volume lives in the middle of the country; transparency lives almost nowhere.

The Surgery job market pays well, hires broadly, and tells you almost nothing — which means the most valuable skill in this specialty right now is knowing how to ask.
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Salary data based on 18 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.