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Salary data from BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics

Rotary Drill Operators, Oil And Gas Salary: Wichita Falls, TX vs Tyler, TX

Rotary Drill Operators, Oil And Gas earn a median of $57,240 in Wichita Falls, TX and $77,650 in Tyler, TX. That is a nominal gap of $20,410 (-26.3%), with Tyler, TX paying more before any cost-of-living adjustment.

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey, May 2024 estimates. Cost-of-living adjustment uses BEA Regional Price Parities, most recent release.

$57,240
Wichita Falls, TX median
$63,946 after COL
$77,650
Tyler, TX median
$84,259 after COL
-26.3%
Nominal gap
Tyler, TX leads
-24.1%
Adjusted gap
Tyler, TX leads after COL

The story behind the numbers

On raw wages, Tyler, TX pays $20,410 more per year than Wichita Falls, TX for rotary drill operators, oil and gas, a gap of +26.3%.

After adjusting for cost of living, Tyler, TX still comes out ahead, with roughly $20,313 of extra purchasing power (+24.1% real gap). Local prices do not reverse the nominal advantage.

Full breakdown by location

Detailed wage, employment, and cost-of-living figures for rotary drill operators, oil and gas in each location. Click through to the full local salary page for percentiles, outlook, and peer areas.

Rotary Drill Operators, Oil And Gas

Wichita Falls, TX

Median salary
$57,240
Mean salary
$55,820
Employment
40
Location quotient
7.98
Jobs per 1,000
0.7
COL-adjusted median
$63,946
Regional Price Parity
89.5%

Exact metro RPP match.

Full Rotary Drill Operators, Oil And Gas page for Wichita Falls, TX →

Rotary Drill Operators, Oil And Gas

Tyler, TX

Median salary
$77,650
Mean salary
$70,970
Employment
80
Location quotient
8.03
Jobs per 1,000
0.7
COL-adjusted median
$84,259
Regional Price Parity
92.2%

Exact metro RPP match.

Full Rotary Drill Operators, Oil And Gas page for Tyler, TX →

Related pages

Keep digging into rotary drill operators, oil and gas from a different angle.

Common questions about this comparison

What does the cost-of-living adjustment actually do? +

It divides each location's nominal median wage by its Regional Price Parity (RPP), which measures how local prices compare to the national average (100 = national). A wage of $100,000 in an area with RPP 120 has the same purchasing power as roughly $83,000 nationally.

Why would the nominal and adjusted winners disagree? +

High-cost metros often pay higher salaries, but not by enough to fully offset the higher cost of housing, goods, and services. When that happens, the location with the lower nominal wage actually offers more real purchasing power.

What is a location quotient? +

The location quotient measures how concentrated an occupation is in a given area versus the national average. A value of 2.0 means the occupation is twice as common there as nationally. It is a signal of what a metro specializes in.