2025 Oregon Wage Information
November 07, 2025Understanding how your take home pay compares with others in your field, or someone in a different career, is vitally important. It can inform you about how your work is being valued, and whether you may want to pursue more lucrative career options in the future. Likewise, hiring employers benefit from knowing the range of wages paid to workers in positions similar to those they are looking to hire, in their area of the state. Thanks to survey responses from employers around the state, the Oregon Employment Department publishes wage estimates for over 750 occupations, as well as hundreds of occupations in every region of the state. The 2025 version of Occupational Wage Information is now available.
The annual average wage for all occupations in Oregon was $71,964 in 2025, or $34.60 per hour. Of the occupations with published data, gambling service workers, all other had the lowest average wage of $16.15 per hour. Physicians, all other had the highest average wage ($149.14 per hour). Medical specialists like physicians, all other have such a high average wage because it take many years of education and experience in order to perform that level of work.
The cost of living, mix of industries, and available workforce can be different across the state. We may see a higher number of design engineers and folks working in corporate headquarters in Portland, while natural resource jobs may be more concentrated in rural communities, and leisure and hospitality jobs focused near the coast. Wage estimates reflect these differences. The average hourly wage for Multnomah and Washington counties (the Portland-Metro region) was $38.90, and Clackamas County came in at $35.66 in 2025. Jobs in Central Oregon ($31.37) and Southwestern Oregon ($27.99) had lower average wages than jobs around the Portland tri-county area.
| 2025 Hourly Wages | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Workforce Area | 10th Percentile | 50th Percentile (Median) | 90th Percentile | Mean (Average) | 2025 Annual Mean FTE (Average) |
| Oregon Statewide | $17.00 | $26.28 | $62.58 | $34.60 | $71,964 |
| Clackamas | $17.53 | $27.68 | $63.45 | $35.66 | $74,167 |
| East Cascades | $16.15 | $24.19 | $52.82 | $31.37 | $65,256 |
| Eastern Oregon | $15.08 | $23.10 | $47.38 | $28.26 | $58,781 |
| Lane | $15.60 | $23.72 | $51.82 | $30.72 | $63,902 |
| Mid-Valley | $16.59 | $24.57 | $54.24 | $31.63 | $65,774 |
| Northwest Oregon | $15.28 | $23.38 | $53.45 | $30.57 | $63,582 |
| Portland-Metro | $17.78 | $29.72 | $67.99 | $38.90 | $80,902 |
| Rogue Valley | $15.98 | $23.86 | $49.95 | $29.76 | $61,903 |
| Southwestern Oregon | $15.24 | $22.88 | $47.13 | $27.99 | $58,231 |
The labor market is a symphony performed by workers with very different knowledge, skills, and abilities. The market and its arrangement combines entry-level workers just getting started with experienced workers with additional education or years of experience. By looking at wage ranges we have a better understanding of how workers are paid when they start a career, or how that may change with more experience.
We provide wage ranges by publishing a series of percentiles for each occupation. A percentile wage shows the percentage of workers in an occupation that earn less than a given wage and the percentage that earn more. In most cases, wages in the 10th or 25th percentile likely reflect workers just entering a career, or who have less education attainment than others performing similar work. To get a better understanding of wage ranges let’s look at the wages for some of the most difficult to fill jobs in Oregon.
According to the 2024 Oregon Job Vacancy Survey the occupations with the most difficult to fill vacancies ranged in skill level, education requirement, and pay.The list of occupations with the highest count of difficult to fill jobs included occupations in health care, transportation, maintenance, education, and food services. The pay ranges for these careers can be very different from one another.
Like musicians in an orchestra, workers can change careers just a players may change their instrument to match the needs of a performance. Entry-level jobs can be a great place to skill up and develop the experience to find better paying jobs in the future. Some occupations require additional training up or education, and that is reflected in the pay we typically see for these workers.
Pay for the occupations with the most difficult to fill jobs ranged between $14.98 and $70.82 per hour in 2025. Careers that require more postsecondary training and certification typically pay higher wages. That’s what we see with truck drivers ($23 to $40 per hour), and automotive service mechanics ($18 - $39 per hour). Registered nursing jobs may require a range of education, ranging from Associate’s degree, to a Masters in nursing. This range of education and skill requirements show up in their wages, which can range from $46 to $70 an hour.
Occupational wage information allows us to better understand what people get paid for the work they do, and how that may differ across the state. To get additional wage estimates for hundreds of careers please visit QualityInfo.org.