Industrial Production Manager Salary in Texas: Pay by Experience, City & Take-Home

An industrial production manager in Texas earns a median of $130,890 a year, or about $62.93 an hour, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2025). Most of the field lands between $98,260 at the 25th percentile and $165,980 at the 75th, with the top 10 percent clearing $207,880. That median runs above the national figure, and because Texas charges no state income tax, you keep more of every dollar than a manager doing the same job in most other states.

How Texas compares to the national median

Texas pays industrial production managers more than the country as a whole. The national median for this role (SOC 11-3051) is $126,060, per the BLS 2025 wage survey. Texas comes in at $130,890, which is $4,830 above the national number, or roughly 104 percent of it. The gap is modest on its own, but it widens once you account for the fact that Texas takes no cut of your paycheck for state income tax. A manager earning the same gross in California or New York hands several thousand dollars back to the state every year, and the take-home section below works that difference out in exact dollars.

The spread inside Texas matters more than the median for most readers. The bottom 10 percent of industrial production managers in the state earn $79,780 or less, while the top 10 percent earn $207,880 or more. That is a $128,100 difference between the floor and the ceiling for the same job title. Where you land depends on the industry, the size of the plant, the certifications you hold, and the metro you work in, and every one of those is something you can act on. Texas employs about 21,200 industrial production managers, one of the largest pools of these jobs in any state, which means moving between employers to chase a raise is a realistic plan rather than wishful thinking.

This is a title that hides a wide range of work. A first-line shift manager running a single production line at a food plant sits at one end. A plant manager overseeing a refinery’s maintenance and output, or an operations director for a chemical complex on the Gulf Coast, sits at the other. Both report under the same BLS code, which is exactly why the percentile ladder tells a more honest story than any single average. Read the median as the midpoint of a very deep field, not as the going rate for the job.

One more way to read the national comparison: the mean wage for Texas industrial production managers is $138,210, which sits $7,320 above the state median of $130,890. When the average runs higher than the midpoint, it tells you the top earners are pulling the average up, and that the high end of the field is real money rather than a statistical quirk. For someone aiming at a plant-manager or operations-director seat, Texas is one of the better states in the country to do it, because the heavy industry that pays the most for this role, oil and gas, petrochemicals, and Gulf Coast manufacturing, is concentrated here.

Industrial production manager pay in Texas by experience

BLS reports wages by percentile rather than by years on the job, but the percentile ladder maps cleanly onto a career arc. Entry and early-career roles cluster near the 10th and 25th percentiles, mid-career sits at the median, and seasoned managers and plant directors occupy the 75th and 90th. Here is the full ladder for Texas.

Walk the ladder one rung at a time, because each step tells you something different about the work. The 10th percentile, $79,780, is roughly where a new production supervisor lands when they get promoted off the floor into their first management seat. They are responsible for a shift or a single line, they own a schedule and a small headcount, and they are still learning the budget side of the job. At about $38.36 an hour, this tier already pays well above the median for most hourly manufacturing work, which is part of why the move into management is worth making.

The jump from the 10th to the 25th percentile is $18,480, taking you to $98,260. That step usually reflects a few years of proven reliability, a bigger area of responsibility, and the start of real ownership over quality and output numbers. The climb from the 25th to the median is the biggest single move on the whole ladder in raw dollars: $32,630, landing you at $130,890. This is the band where a supervisor becomes a department or area manager, takes on a P&L, and starts being measured on cost, safety, and throughput together. Crossing it is less about tenure than about being trusted with the money.

From the median to the experienced tier at the 75th percentile is another $35,090, reaching $165,980, or about $79.80 an hour. At this level you are typically running a full plant or a large production area, managing other managers, and answering for capital projects rather than just daily output. The final step, from the 75th to the 90th percentile, adds $41,900 and brings you to $207,880, close to $100 an hour. That tier is plant directors, multi-site operations leaders, and managers at the highest-paying employers in the state, which in Texas means refining, petrochemicals, and large-scale food and beverage production. The fact that each rung gets bigger in dollar terms as you climb tells you the upside is real and it concentrates at the top.

It helps to read the ladder in hourly terms, because production managers often work long, irregular weeks and the hourly figure is the honest measure of what the time is worth. The entry tier works out to about $38.36 an hour, the median to $62.93, the experienced tier to $79.80, and the senior tier to roughly $99.94. If you are weighing a contract or interim management offer, those are the benchmarks to hold it against. A rate below the $62.93 median for a mid-level plant role is below market for Texas, and a rate near the experienced $79.80 figure signals the employer expects a manager who can run the site with little oversight.

Industrial production manager salary by Texas metro

Where you work inside Texas moves the number more than most people expect. The state’s median is $130,890, but the five metros below span a $24,800 range at the median, driven mostly by which industries cluster where. Here is how the largest markets compare, with employment counts so you can see how deep each one is.

Beaumont-Port Arthur is the standout, and the reason is industry. The median there is $150,860, which is $19,970 above the state median and the highest of any major Texas metro for this role. That market is built around refining and petrochemicals on the upper Gulf Coast, where production-manager pay is among the richest in the country because the plants are large, the processes are complex, and the cost of downtime is enormous. The catch is depth: only about 550 of these jobs exist there, so it is a high-pay, low-volume market. If you have refinery or chemical-plant experience, it is one of the best-paying places in America to do this work. If you do not, the openings are scarce.

Houston is the center of gravity. At a $133,870 median it pays $2,980 above the state figure, and with about 6,060 managers employed it is by far the deepest market in Texas. The combination of energy, petrochemicals, and a large general-manufacturing base means there is a constant flow of openings across pay levels, so a manager who wants to climb by changing employers has the most room to maneuver here. Dallas-Fort Worth is close behind on both counts, with a $132,990 median ($2,100 above the state) and about 5,890 jobs, but its mix leans more toward aerospace, electronics, and consumer-goods manufacturing than energy. The two big metros together account for nearly 12,000 of the state’s 21,200 jobs, so for most readers the realistic choice is between them.

Austin sits a little below the state median at $129,390, which is $1,500 under the statewide number, with about 1,430 jobs concentrated in semiconductor and electronics production. San Antonio is the lowest of the five at $126,060, exactly level with the national median and $4,830 below the Texas median, with about 1,340 jobs spread across food processing, automotive, and general manufacturing. Neither is a weak market, but the highest-paying heavy industry sits on the coast and in Houston, and the metro table makes that pattern plain. The lesson across all five: in Texas your metro choice and your industry choice are the same choice, because the pay follows where the heavy plants are.

Take-home pay after tax in Texas

The salary figures above are gross. What lands in your account is smaller, and in Texas the math is simpler than almost anywhere else because the state takes nothing. The table below runs each percentile point through federal income tax, FICA (Social Security and Medicare), and state income tax, then shows what is left annually and monthly. State tax is zero on every row, which is the single biggest reason Texas managers keep more than their peers elsewhere.

Read the rows from the top down and the effect of a no-tax state becomes clear. The entry-level manager grossing $79,780 pays $9,166 in federal tax and $6,103 in FICA, keeps $64,511, and takes home about $5,376 a month. The effective tax rate at that level is roughly 19.1 percent, almost all of it federal. The median manager at $130,890 pays $20,661 in federal tax and $10,013 in FICA, nets $100,216, and brings home about $8,351 a month, for an effective rate near 23.4 percent. Notice that the rate climbs even though the state line stays at zero. That is the federal brackets doing the work, since each additional dollar at higher income is taxed at a higher federal rate.

The experienced manager at $165,980 keeps $124,200 after $29,082 in federal tax and $12,697 in FICA, about $10,350 a month and a 25.2 percent effective rate. The senior tier at $207,880 nets $154,738, roughly $12,895 a month, at a 25.6 percent effective rate. The gap between the experienced and senior rate is small (25.2 to 25.6 percent) because FICA’s Social Security portion caps out and stops applying to the highest earnings, which slows the rate climb at the top. The headline across all four rows is the same: the state column never moves off zero, so every percentage point of effective rate you see is federal.

Here is the comparison that no AI overview can match, because it requires running two states side by side. Take the Texas median of $130,890. In Texas, that manager nets $100,216. The same gross salary in California, which taxes income on a steep progressive schedule, nets about $92,016. That is a gap of $8,200 a year kept in Texas purely because of the difference in state income tax, with the federal and FICA bills identical on both sides. Over a ten-year stretch in the same job, that is more than $82,000 of extra money in your pocket for doing identical work, before you even factor in raises. For a manager weighing two offers in different states, that gap is real spendable income, not a rounding difference.

One caveat keeps the comparison honest: net pay minus local housing is the number that actually matters. Texas has no income tax, but it leans harder on property tax, and the state median sits above the national figure partly because Gulf Coast industry pays well and partly because that work clusters in metros with their own cost of living. A $100,216 net in a lower-cost Texas market stretches differently than the same net in central Austin. Before you accept an offer, run your exact salary, filing status, and any pre-tax deductions through the Texas paycheck calculator, then subtract what housing actually costs in your target metro. The difference is your real standard of living, and it is the figure to compare across offers. If you want to model the federal side in detail, or you have outside income, self-employment, or investment gains to account for, tax software like TurboTax will walk the brackets for you. ThePayGuide may earn a commission from links on this page at no cost to you. See our editorial policy.

How to earn more as an industrial production manager in Texas

The ladder from the $130,890 median to the $207,880 ninetieth percentile is worth about $77,000 a year, and in Texas the path is concrete because the highest-paying industry is right here. These are the moves that actually shift the number:

• Move toward energy, refining, and petrochemicals. The Beaumont-Port Arthur median of $150,860 is $19,970 above the state median, and it is built on coastal refining and chemical plants. Getting process-industry experience on your resume, even at a mid-tier plant, is the fastest way to climb, because those employers pay the most for this role anywhere in the country.
• Earn a recognized operations or quality credential. A Six Sigma Green or Black Belt, a CPIM (Certified in Planning and Inventory Management), or a Lean certification signals you can run cost and throughput, which is exactly what separates the median from the experienced tier. Structured programs through Coursera let you stack these around a full-time job, and they map directly onto the skills employers price at the 75th percentile and above.
• Take on a P&L and a bigger headcount. The $32,630 jump from the 25th percentile to the median tracks the move from supervising a line to owning a department budget. Volunteer for the cost-accountability piece early, because it is the gate to the median band.
• Build a hard safety record. In Texas heavy industry, a clean safety and environmental-compliance history is worth real money. Managers who can demonstrate they kept a plant running without incidents are who the highest-paying employers hire first.
• Change employers in a deep metro. Houston (6,060 jobs) and Dallas-Fort Worth (5,890 jobs) have enough openings that switching companies every few years is a legitimate raise strategy. The state mean of $138,210 sitting above the $130,890 median confirms the top half is reachable, and the deepest markets are where you find the rungs.
• Move into multi-site or plant-director roles. The 90th percentile at $207,880 is mostly people who manage other managers or run more than one facility. That is the destination, and it usually requires a track record across two or three of the moves above.

Job outlook for production managers in Texas

The demand signal in the data is the employment base itself. Texas supports about 21,200 industrial production managers, among the largest counts of any state, anchored by Houston’s 6,060 jobs and Dallas-Fort Worth’s 5,890. A market that size does not hinge on a single employer or a single boom, which makes it more stable for a long career than a small specialized market would be. Energy, petrochemicals, aerospace, semiconductors, and food production all hire for this role in Texas, so a downturn in one sector rarely closes off the others.

The practical read for a job seeker is that openings exist across pay levels and metros at the same time, which is what lets you trade up without relocating out of state. To see what is live in your target metro and pay band right now, scan current postings on a board like ZipRecruiter and filter by industry, because in Texas the industry you target moves your pay more than almost any other choice you make.

Related and higher-paying roles in Texas

It helps to see how this role pays against adjacent management jobs in the same state, because it tells you whether a lateral move would cost or gain you money. Both common comparison roles in Texas pay well below an industrial production manager. A purchasing agent in Texas earns a median of $76,050, which is $54,840 LESS than an industrial production manager in Texas. A food service manager earns a median of $60,770, which is $70,120 LESS. In both cases the production-management track is the higher-paying seat by a wide margin, so the move that earns more is climbing within this role rather than stepping sideways into either of them.

Frequently asked questions

Sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), 2025, SOC 11-3051. Take-home estimates use 2026 federal income tax brackets and FICA rates; Texas levies no state income tax. Last updated 2026. See our methodology.