Compared with the local labor market
Pharmacy Technician pay vs. California
Across all employers in California, the median wage for Pharmacy Technicians — about 39,860 people — is $55,110. Veterans Affairs pays a median base salary of $59,043 for this role, 7% above that figure — about the 59th percentile of local pay for the occupation.
Where Veterans Affairs sits in the local pay range
$42,850
$46,430
$55,110
$65,590
$81,190
Veterans Affairs median · $59,043
The bar is the range of annual wages for Pharmacy Technicians across every employer in California, from the 10th to the 90th percentile, with the middle 50% highlighted. The marker shows Veterans Affairs’s median base salary for this role. Both figures are base pay only.
And across the country
Nationwide, the median wage for Pharmacy Technicians — about 471,680 people — is $45,750. Veterans Affairs’s median base salary is 29% above that national figure, about the 87th percentile of pay for the occupation nationally.
$36,020
$37,850
$45,750
$49,990
$61,040
Veterans Affairs median · $59,043
Local and national wages differ for reasons beyond how well a job pays — cost of living, the mix of employers, and local demand for the occupation all move the California range relative to the national one.
Computed over the 19 of 23 people in this role paid at least $25,000in base salary. The rest are part-year or part-time records, whose actual pay isn’t comparable to a full-time annual wage.
Median total compensation for this role at Veterans Affairs is $59,233, which includes overtime and employer-paid benefits. The benchmark above excludes both, so total compensation is deliberately not compared against it.
Benchmark: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (May 2025). BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) covers all employers in the area — private, non-profit, and government alike — so this is a comparison against the whole local labor market for the occupation, not against private-sector pay. OEWS wages are straight-time pay and exclude overtime, shift differentials, and employer-paid benefits, so the government figure shown here is base pay on the same basis. Total compensation is not comparable to it. Job titles are matched to the closest standard occupation, so the comparison is between similar work rather than an identical job classification.
Compare departments
This role across California
Pharmacy Technician is held in 5 California departments. In Veterans Affairs, the median of $59,233 ranks #1 of 5.
Highest-paying departments for this role
Median total compensation for the Pharmacy Technician role in other Californiadepartments (highest first). Each bar links to that department’s page for this role.