Biomedical Engineering in Montana

📊 Employment Overview

Montana employs 57 biomedical engineering professionals, representing approximately 0.3% of the national workforce in this field. Montana ranks #44 nationally for biomedical engineering employment.

💰 Salary Information

Biomedical Engineering professionals in Montana earn competitive salaries across all experience levels, with an average annual salary of $86,000.

Note: Salaries are adjusted for cost of living and local market conditions. Data based on BLS statistics and industry surveys (2024-2025).

🎓 Schools Offering Biomedical Engineering

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🚀 Career Insights

Key information for biomedical engineering professionals in Montana.

🏢 Industry Landscape & Top Employers

Montana's biomedical engineering sector is the nation's smallest by absolute employment alongside similarly sized states — 57 professionals ranking #44 nationally — but benefits from a unique combination of factors: a surprisingly strong regional health system, an emerging technology sector in Bozeman and Missoula, and the state's extraordinary quality of life that increasingly attracts remote-working biomedical engineers from coastal markets. Montana is a state where small numbers tell an incomplete story about the biomedical engineering opportunity.

Major Employers: Benefis Health System (Great Falls) and SCL Health's St. Vincent Healthcare (Billings) are Montana's largest private hospital system employers for clinical engineering. Billings Clinic — an integrated multispecialty clinic and hospital system — employs clinical engineers across its eastern Montana network and is the most sophisticated clinical employer in the state. Providence St. Patrick Hospital (Missoula) and Bozeman Health serve the western and south-central markets. The Veterans Affairs Montana Health Care System, with primary facilities in Fort Harrison (Helena) and regional clinics statewide, provides federal clinical engineering employment.

Emerging Tech Sector (Bozeman): Bozeman has emerged as one of the Mountain West's most dynamic technology hubs — anchored by Montana State University's growing research enterprise and a stream of California and Seattle transplants seeking quality of life. Several health technology startups have established Bozeman operations, and MSU's chemistry and engineering programs are generating biomedical research with commercial potential. While the commercial biomedical sector is nascent, Bozeman's technology momentum suggests meaningful growth over the next decade.

Telemedicine Infrastructure: Montana's vast geography — larger than Germany, with a population of just over 1 million — makes telehealth infrastructure engineering perhaps the state's most critical and fastest-growing biomedical engineering niche. The Montana Telehealth Alliance coordinates telehealth deployment across the state's 16 critical access hospitals and dozens of rural clinics, requiring engineers who can design, deploy, and maintain diagnostic and monitoring systems in extremely resource-limited, geographically remote settings.

📈 Career Growth & Pathways

Montana biomedical engineering careers are defined by breadth over depth — the small market demands engineers who can manage broad responsibilities across diverse technology domains, and rewards those who find meaning in serving isolated communities with real healthcare needs.

• Entry-Level Engineer (0–2 years): $53,000–$64,000 — Clinical engineering technician at Montana regional hospital systems, research support at MSU's engineering labs, or biomedical equipment service roles with regional device support companies. Montana's market is too small for significant entry-level hiring; most positions expect prior experience.
• Mid-Level Engineer (3–7 years): $72,000–$90,000 — Clinical technology program management across multiple facilities (Montana engineers typically cover large geographic areas), telehealth systems engineering for rural health networks, or research engineering at MSU's growing programs.
• Senior Engineer / Manager (8–14 years): $92,000–$123,000 — Clinical engineering directors at major Montana health systems, independent consultants serving Montana and neighboring Wyoming/Idaho markets, or senior technical roles at Bozeman health tech companies.
• Director / Principal (15+ years): $125,000–$155,000 — Health system technology executives, MSU faculty with active research programs, or principals at Montana-based healthcare consulting firms serving the rural West.

Remote Work Premium: Montana's growing appeal as a remote work destination means that some of its highest-earning biomedical engineers maintain positions with out-of-state employers — holding Boston or San Francisco salaries while enjoying Montana's dramatically lower costs and quality of life. This dynamic is increasingly visible in Bozeman and Missoula, where engineers employed by Massachusetts or California device companies live Montana lifestyles on coastal salaries.

💰 Salary vs. Cost of Living

Montana's $86,000 average biomedical engineering salary is below the national median but paired with a cost of living — outside of Bozeman's rapidly inflating real estate market — that remains meaningfully below the national average in most of the state. The remote work premium is fundamentally changing the financial calculus for Montana-based engineers.

Bozeman: Montana's most expensive and fastest-growing market. COVID-era in-migration has driven median home prices above $600,000 — a shocking figure for a city of 55,000 and one that has effectively priced many local engineers out of homeownership. Engineers at Bozeman Health or MSU earn $75,000–$105,000 against costs that now rival some mid-tier coastal markets. The lifestyle premium is real, but the financial equation requires careful planning. Remote workers holding out-of-state salaries ($100,000–$150,000+) are best positioned to capitalize on Bozeman's quality of life.

Billings / Missoula / Great Falls: More financially accessible markets. Billings Clinic pays $75,000–$110,000 for experienced clinical engineers against median home prices of $320,000–$400,000 — meaningful value relative to coastal peers. Great Falls and Missoula offer even lower costs ($250,000–$340,000 median homes) with hospital system positions paying $70,000–$95,000. These markets reward engineers who value stability, community, and nature access over career velocity.

No State Income Tax (Starting 2024): Montana eliminated its income tax for lower and middle income earners and significantly reduced rates for higher earners through recent legislative reform — moving toward a flat 5.9% structure. This trend, combined with low property taxes in most rural communities, makes Montana's overall tax burden competitive nationally and enhancing the financial attractiveness of local careers relative to prior calculations.

📜 Licensing & Professional Development

Engineering licensure in Montana is administered by the Montana Board of Professional Engineers and Professional Land Surveyors. Montana's small engineering community means that PE licensure carries strong professional distinction, and the credential is recognized across the broad Mountain West engineering market.

Montana PE Licensure Path:

• FE Exam: Required first step. Montana State University (Bozeman) is Montana's primary engineering institution, with a growing biomedical engineering program. University of Montana (Missoula) contributes students from its interdisciplinary programs.
• 4 Years of Progressive Experience: Under PE supervision. Montana's small engineering community can make finding a local supervising PE challenging — many candidates work under PEs at organizations in neighboring states or in multi-state engineering firms with Montana presence.
• PE Exam: Full NCEES reciprocity. Montana engineers serving the broader Mountain West commonly maintain Idaho, Wyoming, and North Dakota licenses for cross-border consulting work across the region's rural healthcare market.

Rural Health Technology Competencies: Montana's unique engineering niche demands familiarity with critical access hospital standards, HRSA rural health grant frameworks, and telehealth technical standards (HRSA's Telehealth Resource Center programs). Engineers who develop expertise in these frameworks are the most sought after in Montana's clinical engineering community and find their skills translate well to other rural-health-focused markets nationally.

📊 Job Market Outlook

Montana's biomedical engineering market is small and will grow modestly in absolute terms, but the state's quality-of-life appeal and remote work dynamics are creating new career models that may bring more engineers to Montana than traditional employment statistics capture.

Healthcare System Consolidation: Montana's health systems are consolidating to create more sustainable rural healthcare delivery — Benefis, SCL Health, Providence, and Billings Clinic are each expanding their service footprints, which requires modernization of clinical technology infrastructure and creates modest clinical engineering demand across the state. SCL Health's integration into CommonSpirit Health brings national scale and resources to Montana's healthcare engineering needs.

Remote Work and Quality of Life Migration: Montana is among the top-5 most popular remote work migration destinations in the US. As biomedical engineers at coastal companies gain remote work flexibility, an increasing share are choosing Montana for its lifestyle. While these engineers' salaries aren't captured in Montana's BLS employment statistics, their presence enriches the local professional community and seeds potential future local business formation.

5-Year Projection: Montana biomedical engineering employment (as measured by BLS) is projected to grow 8–12% over five years, representing approximately 5–7 net new positions. Remote work migration will add an unmeasured additional component of engineering talent to the state's professional community.

🕐 Day in the Life

Biomedical engineering in Montana is characterized by extraordinary work-life integration — the state's natural environment is so magnificent, and accessible so immediately from most workplaces, that the boundary between professional and outdoor life blurs in ways that engineers from more urban markets find genuinely transformative.

At Billings Clinic or Benefis Health: A Montana clinical engineer manages broader responsibilities across more diverse equipment than counterparts at larger health systems. A day at Billings Clinic might begin with servicing a radiology imaging suite, continue with a telehealth system configuration for a new critical access hospital partnership, and end with a capital planning meeting about replacing aging patient monitoring infrastructure across three facilities. The generalist demands are real — Montana engineers often cover territory that would occupy entire departments at larger institutions — but the breadth creates rapid professional development and genuine institutional indispensability.

Lifestyle: Montana's lifestyle is the dominant reason engineers choose to live there, and it delivers fully on its promise. Glacier National Park and Yellowstone are within weekend driving distance of most Montana communities. World-class fly fishing on the Madison, Gallatin, and Yellowstone rivers — rivers that appear in every serious angler's bucket list — flows past towns where biomedical engineers live and work. Skiing at Big Sky, Whitefish, and Red Lodge; mountain biking on Bozeman's extensive trail network; and the Big Sky's openness create a daily life that simply cannot be replicated in any other US state. The trade-offs — limited employer depth, long winters, isolation from coastal amenities — are real, but engineers who choose Montana overwhelmingly report that the lifestyle trade is worth making.

🔄 Compare with Other States

See how Montana compares to other top states for biomedical engineering: