Texas nurses are in a great position to make a lot of money. The population of Texas is growing and when you add in the newly arrived people crossing the southern border, the amount of nurses that the federal government requires is on the rise.
Large cities such as Dallas and Houston have recently become hot spots for travel nurses. Federal programs aimed at handling humanitarian crisis with people crossing over the border have called for thousands of nurses to be flown to Texas.
The amount of money a nurse in Texas can make will vary, depending on location and work environment. That’s why it’s important to know what you’re getting into before sizing up with a nurse recruiting agency or talking to a nurse recruiter.
A local Texas nurse working in a old age home or rehab facility will make less than a travel nurse brought in to handle the humanitarian surge and care for new arrivals. And local Texas hospital nurses will make less than their counterparts flown in to cover travel contracts for ICU and ER shifts.
On average, a nurse in Texas is going to make 3 times more than a nurse in other states. Nurses also make great salaries compared to the average salary.
For instance, the minimum wage in Texas is (as of 2022) $7.25 cents.
The average pay for a new grad in nursing in Texas is $45 dollars.
Travel nurses who work in Texas are paid: $100-$130 an hour.
Recent job postings (as of 2022) include:
Texas Nursing Home : $45 dollars an hour
Texas Med-Surg Nurse: $90 dollars an hour
Texas infusion nurse: $115k a year (salaried role)
These postings are updatede weekly on nursing job sites (not just Indeed, but specility nursing job sites and private recruiting platforms that nurses are invited to).
Obviously nurses are well compensated and therefore there is a huge amount of interest in nursing jobs in Texas.
What Kind Of Nurse: Texas Nurse Salaries For RNs vs LPNs
The main difference between an LPN and an RN is the salary. The work that an LPN and an RN do while on the clock is remarkably similar. The main difference is that insurance and government mandates require nurses to be RNs in order for funding to be in place.
A Texas hospital therefore will need to have a certain amount of nurses on the floor who have an RN degree and license.
Large cities in Texas such as Dallas, Houston, and now Austin are seeing an increase in Medicaid funded programs. These are designed to assist people who do not have employment, money , or other methods of paying for health care.
Large hospital systems in Texas are in dire need of hiring nurses and this is why the large nursing contracts are coming in. The government mandates that the hospitals have a certain number of nurses in the hospitals.
LPNs do not make as much money as RNs do. This is why most LPNs tend to go to nursing school as soon as they can and get an RN degree. It allows them to advance quickly and become a registered nurse.
Texas has a higher demand for RNs than LPNs. Therefore, it’s more lucrative to work as a RN in cities like Dallas, Austin, and Houston.
An LPN might make $25 an hour. An RN will start at $40 and advance to over $140 in some hospitals.
Where In Texas Are Nurses Making High Salaries
The highest salaries are going to be in the major cities. Locations such as Dallas, Fort Worth, Austin, and Houston.
If you are a nurse and looking to relocate to Texas to work, then you’ll be best suited in a major city.
The influx of people into Texas has overwhelmed the hospitals. Nurses are in great demand at most Dallas, San Antonio, and Houston hospitals.
Immigration centers are also hiring nurses and paying them over $150 an hour in some locales. These roles are advertised on private nursing Facebooks and also on job posting sites like:
Indeed and Craigslist and job boards for nursing students .
When searching for a Job, make sure to use a location in your search. If you do not indicate the particular location where you want to search for a job, then you’ll be in a less than advantageous spot when it comes to finding work.
Keep your job searches to the following locations:
- Dallas, Texas
- Houston, Texas
- San Antonio, Texas
And if you are able to, try and look for nursing jobs in Public hospitals in the Texas system. These government funded programs have much higher budgets. A nurse at a public hospital will often times be paid twice the salary of a private nurse working at a private hospital.
Some nurses even consider the travel contracts in Texas as a sort of nursing side hustle. They save up sick days and then call out of work for a few weeks to make 40-50k on a short assignment in Texas.
Do You Have To Have a Nursing Degree in Texas
Yes, in order to work as a nurse in Texas you have to have a nursing degree. If you want to work as a Registered Nurse, it’s required that you have a nursing degree. This might either be an Associates Degree in Nursing or a BSN.
It’s not just Texas that requires nurses to have a degree. All nurses are leagally required to have a degree if they are working in a hospital setting.
Some people who want to work as nurses do not go to nursing school and try to get private jobs as private nurses.
However, in most cases it’s illegal to work as a nurse without a nursing degree. In some cities where there are tens of thousands of people admitted to public hospitals every day there are people who try and sneak in and work as nurses without any degree. They are usually found out by the departments after a certain amount of time.
More importantly, because most people who work in nursing have a nursing degree, is the state licensing. If you want to work in Texas as a nurse then you will need to have a nursing degree that is accepted in Texas.
If you have a nursing degree, a compact or Texas state nursing license, and a basic resume then you will get a nursing job in Texas. You don’t even need a cover letter as a nurse who wants to work in Texas.
Do You Have to Have A Nursing License
All nurses who work in Texas have to have a nursing degree. If you are planning on working in Texas then you need to have a nursing license that is relevant in Texas.
Texas does take what is called the compact license. This means that nurses from many other states are able to work in Texas. When you have a nursing license that is part of the compact states, then you can work wherever you want to.
Because Texas is a compact state nurses in Texas can work outside of Texas as well as other states that are part of the compact.
If you do not have a nursing license that is part of the compact, or a Texas license, then you cannot legally work as a nurse in Texas. However, it’s a fast process to obtain your compact license.
Many nurse recruiting firms will even pay for you to switch over your nursing license to a compact one.
If you sign up with a well run nurse recruiting agency that is hiring for nurses in Texas, then you will normally find one that will provide the forms necessary to sign up and obtain a compact license.
Travel Nursing in Texas: Where The Big Money Is
The big money is in travel nursing. The typical nurse in Texas might make 100k a year.
However, the highest paid nurses are the travel nurses. The public hospitals in Dallas, San Antonio, and Houston are hinging nurses and paying them 14k a week.
These nursing roles attract nurses from all over the country.
On sites like Indeed, you will see postings for nurses to work in rehab, clinics, and other patient focused environments. The pay rate might be 50 to 80 dollars an hour.
The travel nurse roles are going to be found through nursing agencies, private networks of travel nurses, and sometimes on nursing job boards.
Because travel nursing is so lucrative, with nurses in Texas making 10k plus 4k in benefits and stipends, there is more incentive to hire nurses.
Recruiters are wary to avoid problem nurses, who do give travel nurses a bad name. So, there are background checks and reference checks. But if you are a nurse looking for a high paying job in Texas, then there is no better line of work than a emergency nursing contract at a public hospital.
Hey I’m Chris . 20+ years in the industry. I’ve worked every role from Executive recrutier to Agency founder and consultant. If you want to learn more or reach me,vist the about page or use my contact form.