Production and Operating Supervisor Salary in Texas: Pay by Experience, City & Take-Home

A first-line production and operating supervisor in Texas earns a median of $70,140 a year, which works out to about $33.72 an hour, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2025). Most people in the role earn between $51,990 and $90,160, with the lowest tenth under $43,360 and the top tenth above $115,230. Texas charges no state income tax, so more of that gross stays in your pocket than it would in most states.

How Texas pay compares to the national figure

The national median for production and operating supervisors is $74,450, according to BLS OEWS 2025. Texas sits at $70,140, which is $4,310 below the national midpoint, or about 5.8 percent lower on paper. That gap looks worse than it lives, because Texas has no state income tax and a lower cost of living than the coastal states that pull the national average up.

The state mean (average) sits higher than the median at $74,590, almost exactly level with the national median. The mean rides above the median because a relatively small group of high earners in petrochemical, refining, and heavy-manufacturing plants pulls the average up while leaving the typical worker’s figure unchanged. When an average runs well above a midpoint like this, it tells you the top of the pay range is long, and that is exactly what the percentile spread below confirms.

With 58,930 of these supervisors employed across the state, Texas is one of the largest markets in the country for the role. Demand is spread across the Gulf Coast energy corridor, the manufacturing belt around Dallas and Fort Worth, and the growing assembly and logistics base near Austin and San Antonio. That depth of employment matters when you negotiate, because there are usually competing plants within driving distance willing to bid for an experienced floor supervisor.

It helps to read the percentage gap and the dollar gap together. The 5.8 percent shortfall against the national median is real on paper, but the national figure is held up by states such as California and the Northeast, where pay is higher and so is everything else you spend it on. A Texas supervisor at $70,140 with no state income tax can end up with a larger residual after tax and housing than a higher-paid peer in a coastal market. The section on take-home below puts exact dollar figures on that point, including a side-by-side against California for the identical salary.

One more thing the headline median hides: the range inside Texas is wide. The 10th percentile of $43,360 and the 90th percentile of $115,230 are $71,870 apart. That spread is more than the median itself, which tells you the title “production and operating supervisor” covers everything from a junior shift lead in a small plant to a senior area supervisor running a refinery unit. Two people with the same job title in Texas can be paid very differently, and the deciding factors are industry, plant size, and shift, all of which you can influence over a career.

Production supervisor pay in Texas by experience

Pay in this role tracks closely with years on the floor, the size of the crew you run, and the complexity of the process you oversee. A new supervisor stepping up from a lead or senior operator role starts near the bottom of the band. The people at the top run large shifts in capital-intensive plants where a bad hour costs the company real money, and they are paid accordingly. Here is how the BLS percentile points map to career stages.

The jump from the 25th to the 75th percentile is large, from $51,990 to $90,160, a difference of $38,170. That spread is where the real money decisions happen. Moving from early-career to experienced pay is mostly about three things in Texas: taking responsibility for a larger or higher-risk operation, picking up the safety and quality credentials plants value, and being willing to work the less popular night and weekend shifts that carry premiums. The hourly figures are derived from the annual numbers assuming a standard 2,080-hour year, so they are approximate for salaried supervisors who work more than 40 hours.

Look at the steps one at a time. Entry to early career, $43,360 to $51,990, is an $8,630 raise that usually comes with proving you can hold a shift together on your own. Early career to median, $51,990 to $70,140, is the biggest single jump at $18,150, and it is the one most people stall on, because it requires moving from “competent shift lead” to “the supervisor the plant trusts with its priority lines.” Median to experienced, $70,140 to $90,160, adds $20,020 and almost always involves either a higher-paying industry or a larger span of control. Experienced to senior, $90,160 to $115,230, is another $25,070 and typically means an area or department title rather than a single-line role.

Each of those steps is a concrete target you can name in a review conversation. If you are sitting at the median and want to reach the 75th percentile, you now know the number you are reaching for is roughly $90,000, and you know the move that gets you there is more scope or a higher-paying plant, not a cost-of-living bump. That clarity is worth more than a vague sense that you are “underpaid.”

Production supervisor salary by Texas metro

Where you work inside Texas changes the number more than most people expect. The Gulf Coast pays a premium because of refining, chemicals, and offshore-adjacent manufacturing, while the big metroplexes sit closer to the state median. These are the five largest Texas metro markets for the role, ranked by employment, from BLS OEWS 2025.

Beaumont-Port Arthur tops the list at $80,860, which is $10,720 above the Dallas-Fort Worth median and $10,720 above the statewide figure as well. That is the refining and petrochemical premium in plain numbers. The Golden Triangle around Beaumont and Port Arthur runs some of the largest refineries in the country, and supervising those processes pays for the responsibility and the hazard.

Houston, the second-largest market with 15,270 supervisors, pays $75,330, roughly $5,190 above the state median, for the same reason on a larger scale. Dallas-Fort Worth, the biggest single market at 16,880 jobs, pays slightly under the state median at $69,940 because its manufacturing base leans toward lighter assembly, electronics, and consumer goods rather than heavy process work. Austin and San Antonio land in between at $71,470 and $70,500. The takeaway is direct: if you want the highest median in the state and you can tolerate the work, the Gulf Coast plants pay the most.

There is a volume story underneath the pay story. Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston together hold 32,150 of the state’s 58,930 supervisor jobs, which is about 55 percent of all production-supervisor employment in Texas concentrated in just two metros. That concentration cuts both ways. It means the most openings, the most lateral moves, and the most negotiating options sit in those two markets, but it also means more candidates competing for each role. Beaumont-Port Arthur, by contrast, has only 1,290 of these jobs, so the highest median in the state comes from a small, specialized market where the right experience is scarce and therefore well paid.

If you are early in your career and want options, the DFW and Houston markets give you the most room to move between employers without relocating. If you are experienced and want to maximize the number, the Gulf Coast process plants are where the median tops out, and the trade is a more demanding, higher-hazard environment for the extra pay. Austin’s $71,470 deserves a note of its own: the advanced-manufacturing buildout there, semiconductors and electric-vehicle assembly, is newer and still growing, so the pay picture in that metro is likely to keep shifting as those plants scale.

Take-home pay after tax in Texas

Gross salary is the headline; take-home is what you actually live on. Texas has no state income tax, so the only deductions on a standard paycheck are federal income tax and FICA (Social Security and Medicare). The table below runs each percentile point through 2026 federal rates for a single filer taking the standard deduction. Your own number shifts with filing status, dependents, retirement contributions, and benefit deductions.

At the median, a Texas production supervisor keeps $57,729 of a $70,140 salary, an effective all-in tax rate of about 17.7 percent. That is $4,811 a month in the bank. The state-tax column reads zero all the way down, and that zero is worth real money.

Notice how the effective rate climbs as pay rises, which is the federal system working as designed. At the entry figure of $43,360, the all-in rate is about 14.9 percent, leaving $36,878 net, or $3,073 a month. At the experienced 75th-percentile figure of $90,160, the rate rises to roughly 20.3 percent, leaving $71,814, or $5,984 a month. At the senior 90th-percentile figure of $115,230, the rate reaches about 22.4 percent, leaving $89,450, or $7,454 a month. Even at the top of the range, the all-in rate stays under a quarter of gross, which it would not in a state that taxes wages on top of the federal bill.

Here is the comparison that no quick answer box will give you. Take the same $70,140 median salary and the same single-filer assumptions, then drop the worker into California instead of Texas. The California version nets $55,101 after that state’s income tax, while the Texas version nets $57,729. That is a gap of $2,628 a year kept in Texas for the exact same gross pay, purely because Texas does not tax wages. Over a ten-year stretch in the role, that difference alone adds up to more than $26,000, before you even account for California’s higher housing costs.

Net pay is only half the equation. The number that actually matters is net pay minus local housing. A $57,729 net in a Dallas suburb where a typical mortgage or rent runs lower stretches a lot further than the same net in coastal California, where housing eats a much larger share of every paycheck. When you compare two offers in different states, subtract the realistic monthly housing cost from the monthly net first, then compare what is left. That residual is your true standard of living. You can model your own figure, including 401(k) and HSA contributions, with the Texas paycheck calculator, and if you want your full federal return walked through line by line, a tool like TurboTax handles the filing side.

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How to earn more as a production supervisor in Texas

The path from the median to the 75th and 90th percentiles, from $70,140 toward $90,160 and beyond $115,230, is well worn in Texas. The biggest single lever is the industry you supervise in. Here are the concrete moves that move the number.

• Move toward the Gulf Coast process industries. Refining and petrochemical plants around Beaumont, Port Arthur, and Houston pay the state’s highest medians. A move from a light-assembly plant in DFW ($69,940) to a Beaumont-area process plant ($80,860) is roughly an $11,000 swing on the median alone.
• Earn a Lean Six Sigma Green or Black Belt. Process-improvement credentials are the language plant managers speak when they decide who runs the most important lines. Online programs through providers like Coursera let you finish a Green Belt while you keep working.
• Get your OSHA 30 and safety leadership credentials. In high-hazard Texas plants, a supervisor who owns the safety record is worth more, full stop. Safety performance is one of the clearest reasons plants promote one supervisor over another.
• Take the night and weekend shifts. Shift differentials in Texas plants add real dollars on top of base, and rotating-shift supervisors are paid more because the role is harder to fill.
• Cross-train on more of the process. A supervisor who can cover quality, maintenance coordination, and production scheduling is a candidate for a department or area lead role, which is where the 90th-percentile pay lives.
• Move up to plant or operations manager. The clearest jump past $115,000 is into a manager title that owns a whole shift or facility. Build the resume that gets you there: documented throughput gains, a clean safety record, and crews you have developed into leads.

Job outlook for production supervisors in Texas

Texas employs 58,930 production and operating supervisors, one of the deepest pools in the country, according to BLS OEWS 2025. That base is anchored by the Gulf Coast energy and chemical complex, the Dallas-Fort Worth manufacturing and logistics corridor, and a fast-growing advanced-manufacturing footprint near Austin tied to semiconductors and electric vehicles. As long as those plants keep running shifts, they keep needing supervisors to run the floor.

The role is also relatively insulated from automation at the supervisory level. Machines change what the crew does; someone still has to lead the crew, own the schedule, and answer for safety and output. When you are ready to test the market, a board like ZipRecruiter lets you filter for Texas production-supervisor openings by metro and industry, which is the fastest way to see what local plants are actually paying right now.

Related and higher-paying roles in Texas

If you are weighing a sideways or upward move, here is how two closely related Texas supervisory and quality roles stack up against the $70,140 median for a first-line production supervisor, using BLS OEWS 2025 figures for the state.

A supervisor of mechanics and installers in Texas earns a median of $76,760, which is $6,620 more than a first-line production supervisor here. If your background leans toward maintenance and equipment rather than throughput, that is a realistic and better-paid lane. An inspector, tester, and sorter earns $46,210, which is $23,930 less than the production supervisor median, so moving into quality inspection from a supervisor role is usually a pay cut unless it is a stepping stone toward a quality management title.

Frequently asked questions

Sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), 2025; federal and FICA tax rates for tax year 2026. Last updated 2026. See our methodology.