Seattle and Portland rad tech medians match. The top of the band doesn't.
Seattle's radiologic technologist median is $105,200. Portland's is $104,810. The upper quarters are $129,770 and $121,950.
Seattle copied a Portland radiologic technologist range because the medians looked like twins. They are twins. The top of the band isn't, and that's the part you needed if the req was for someone who can run the room.
Seattle's median is $105,200. Portland's is $104,810. The national median is $80,110, so both cities are well clear of the country. Seattle's lower quarter is $93,460. Seattle's upper quarter is $129,770. Portland's upper quarter is $121,950. Copy the Portland midpoint into Seattle and you have matched the middle. You have not matched a lead tech, a modality you won't train, or the top of Seattle's own market.
OEWS counts 2,130 radiologic technologists in Seattle. The share is thin, about a third fewer than a typical metro. Portland has 1,520. Its share is less thin than Seattle's, and it still isn't a deep bench. Neither city will fill a specialist screen on a generalist wage just because the medians agree.
The work is the image and the patient on the table. Modalities are not interchangeable. A posting titled "tech" that blends two of them will miss both pools, and it will miss them in Seattle and Portland for the same sloppy reason, not because the medians matched.
What the copy gets wrong
The committee's sentence is "they're basically the same market." The medians support that sentence. The upper quarters don't, and neither do the headcounts. A screen that is merely ambitious in Portland becomes a shortage story in Seattle if you also priced the middle. Candidates who can work independently compare you with the upper quarter in their own city. They do not compare you with a sister hospital's midpoint.
If the Seattle job is a staff tech you will orient, price near the median and say that. If it isn't, price toward $129,770 and keep the modality on the posting. Don't borrow $121,950 as a compromise. That number is Portland's upper quarter. It isn't a Seattle decision.
Shift does the same quiet damage as a borrowed midpoint. Nights priced like day staff will draw day people and lose them, or it will draw nights people and insult them. Name it. Seattle's thin share will not paper over a day wage on a night req.
Before you repost Seattle
Write both medians on the intake so the twin is visible, then cross out Portland's. Circle Seattle's median or Seattle's upper quarter. Match the modality list to the circle. Put the shift in the first line. A nights req priced like a day staff job will look like a median offer and behave like a pay cut.
Thin share means another board is a weak first move. The people who do this work in Seattle are a smaller slice than the metro's size suggests. Show them a number from their own upper or middle, not from the city whose median happened to rhyme.
Illustrative story
The Seattle draft was the Portland draft with the city swapped. Median to median, it looked disciplined. The role was a modality the department would not teach. Applicants who had it were earning toward Seattle's upper quarter and didn't pursue a midpoint imported from a market whose own top is lower. Applicants without it were screened out.
The debrief said the Pacific Northwest was tight for technologists. Both cities are thinner than a typical metro. That wasn't the miss. The miss was treating twin medians as twin jobs. They rebuilt the Seattle req on Seattle's upper quarter, named the modality, and left the Portland file in Portland. The next slate was smaller and relevant.
Price Seattle on Seattle's upper quarter when that's the tech you need.
https://reqradius.com/hiring/radiologic-technologists-and-technicians-seattle-wa/
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