Talent Maps / Houston / Electrical Engineers

Houston Electrical Engineer Talent Map (2026)

What electrical engineers earn in Houston, which utilities, energy companies and contractors employ them, and the grid, resilience and data center build-out competing for them.

Hiring electrical engineers in Houston?

A talent map shows where a group of professionals works, what they are paid and who else is trying to hire them. This one covers electrical engineers in the Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands metro area. Pay figures come from the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics wage survey (May 2025), and the demand picture uses utility, grid and company data published in 2026. Our electrical engineering recruiters update it as new data comes out. See also our Houston controls, data center and mechanical talent maps.

$131,070Median electrical engineer pay in HoustonBLS, May 2025

$207,990+What the top 10% of Houston electrical engineers earnBLS, May 2025

$66.7BCenterPoint Energy’s 10-year capital plan, 2026 to 2035CenterPoint, July 2026

50%Growth CenterPoint expects in Houston peak load by 2029Utility Dive, February 2026

14 GWLarge-load projects CenterPoint expects to qualify for ERCOT’s first batch studyCenterPoint, July 2026

1,060Projected electrical engineering job openings a year in Texas through 2034Projections Central

Electrical engineer salaries in Houston

The median electrical engineer in metro Houston earns $131,070 a year, about $1,600 more than the Texas median of $129,450 and $10,440 more than the national median of $120,630. The top 10% earn $207,990 or more, about $23,700 above the national figure.

Annual pay percentile	Houston metro	Texas	United States
10th percentile	$77,170	$76,120	$76,550
25th percentile	$95,990	$95,130	$92,830
Median	$131,070	$129,450	$120,630
75th percentile	$164,240	$164,730	$152,950
90th percentile	$207,990	$210,160	$184,300

Electrical Engineers (SOC 17-2071). Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics OEWS, May 2025, via O*NET OnLine. Wage surveys run about a year behind current offers.

Electronics engineers earn a median of $129,630 in Houston, and electrical and electronic engineering technicians $69,410, ranging up to $112,400 at the 90th percentile. Compare Dallas in our Dallas-Fort Worth electrical engineer talent map.

Where Houston’s electrical engineers work

Utilities and power producers

CenterPoint Energy, headquartered in Houston, serves nearly 2.8 million metered electric customers in Greater Houston. NRG Energy is headquartered in Houston, and Constellation kept a significant Houston presence after buying Calpine in January 2026.

Entergy Texas, based in Beaumont and The Woodlands, serves 538,000 customers across 27 counties.

Energy companies and plants

ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell and the refineries and chemical plants along the Ship Channel hire electrical engineers for power distribution, motors and plant electrification.

Freeport LNG runs 675 MW of all-electric compressor drives, which GE calls the world’s largest all-electric LNG plant.

Engineering and power contractors

Burns & McDonnell’s Houston office works on transmission, distribution and industrial projects, and was ranked Houston’s second-largest engineering firm by the Houston Business Journal in 2026. Quanta Services is headquartered in Houston.

EPC firms such as KBR, Bechtel, Fluor and Worley hire power and electrical design engineers for Gulf Coast plants.

Technology and space

Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s headquarters campus in Spring has more than 120,000 square feet of lab and data center space. Siemens Energy runs a service center in Deer Park.

NASA’s Johnson Space Center, Intuitive Machines and Axiom Space hire avionics and power engineers. See our Houston aerospace talent map.

Where the talent sits: Houston submarkets

Downtown and Midtown

UtilitiesPower

CenterPoint and NRG headquarters, Quanta and Chevron’s new headquarters.

Energy Corridor and west Houston

EPCPlant design

EPC firms and energy company campuses along I-10 west, plus Burns & McDonnell on West Loop South.

Spring and The Woodlands

TechnologyUtilities

HPE headquarters, ExxonMobil’s campus and Entergy Texas.

Ship Channel, Pasadena and Baytown

PlantsField engineering

Refineries and chemical plants that hire plant electrical engineers. See our Houston refineries map.

Clear Lake

Space

Johnson Space Center and its contractors.

What’s driving demand for electrical engineers in Houston

Load growth. CenterPoint expects Houston peak load to rise 50% by 2029, two years sooner than it had forecast, and plans to energize up to 8 GW of data center load by 2029.
Capital spending. CenterPoint raised its 10-year capital plan to $66.7 billion in July 2026, and submitted more than 17 GW of large-load projects to ERCOT’s first batch study, about 14 GW of which it expects to qualify.
Resilience after Hurricane Beryl. CenterPoint’s Greater Houston Resiliency Initiative had replaced more than 83,500 poles and undergrounded more than 900 miles of line by September 2026. Texas regulators approved about $2.7 billion of its 2026 to 2028 resiliency plan.
Record demand. ERCOT set an all-time peak of 91,134 MW on July 22, 2026. In August 2026 the state ordered an audit of data centers waiting to connect, which may slow some large-load projects.
Hydrogen. The HyVelocity hydrogen hub was offered up to $1.2 billion of federal funding, but its status has been uncertain since late 2025.

The talent pipeline

University of Houston. UH’s ABET-accredited electrical engineering program had 739 students and awarded 134 degrees in 2024-25. UH also offers an accredited electrical power engineering technology degree.
Rice University. Rice offers an ABET-accredited BS in electrical and computer engineering.
Prairie View A&M. Its electrical engineering degree is ABET accredited.
Texas A&M. Its electrical engineering program had 1,364 students in fall 2025 and awarded 368 degrees in 2024-25.
Growth. Texas is projected to grow from 15,170 electrical engineers in 2024 to 17,290 in 2034, with about 1,060 openings a year.

What this means if you’re hiring

Utility work is pulling engineers in. CenterPoint’s spending and resilience work compete directly with plants and EPCs for power engineers.
Pay above national rates. Houston’s median is about $10,000 above the US. Plan on the 75th percentile ($164,240) for experienced hires.
Storm experience matters. Engineers who have worked on hardening, undergrounding and storm restoration are in demand.
Recruit from UH and Texas A&M. Between them they graduate hundreds of electrical engineers a year.

Need electrical engineers in Houston?

Apollo Technical has recruited engineers since 2010. Our recruiting teams place power, controls, plant electrical and design engineers on a contract, contract-to-hire and direct hire basis.

Call 832.519.1704 or see our Houston engineering recruiters page.

Hire electrical engineers

Frequently asked questions

How much do electrical engineers make in Houston?

The median electrical engineer salary in metro Houston is $131,070 a year, according to May 2025 BLS data. The middle half earn between $95,990 and $164,240, and the top 10% earn $207,990 or more.

Who hires electrical engineers in Houston?

CenterPoint Energy, NRG, Entergy Texas, Quanta Services, Burns & McDonnell, the major energy companies and EPC firms, HPE and NASA’s Johnson Space Center and its contractors.

How fast is Houston’s power demand growing?

CenterPoint expects peak load in its Houston service area to rise 50% by 2029 and more than double by the mid-2030s, driven largely by data centers and industrial electrification.

Sources (14)