top employers

11 Dallas-Fort Worth companies named best places to work by U.S. News

Texas is home to 30 of the best employers nationwide, according to U.S. News.

Nearly a dozen distinguished Dallas-Fort Worth-based companies have been hailed among the best places to work in 2025 by U.S. News and World Report.

The annual "U.S. News Best Companies to Work For" report examines thousands of publicly-traded companies around the world to determine the best employers based on six metrics including work-life balance and flexibility; quality of pay and benefits; job and company stability; career opportunities and professional development; and more. The companies were not ranked, but included based on reader surveys and publicly available data about each workplace.

New for the 2025-2026 ratings, U.S. News expanded its methodology to include privately owned companies and companies with internship opportunities for recent graduates and new, current, and prospective students. Companies were also grouped into job-specific and industry-specific lists, and the publication also added a new list highlighting "employers that are particularly friendly to employees who are also caregivers in their personal lives."

U.S. News included four publicly-traded companies and seven privately owned companies across DFW on the lists, with eight of them located in Dallas, and one each in Plano, Fort Worth, and Grand Prairie.

It may not come as a surprise that Texas Instruments has once again landed among the top publicly traded Dallas-based companies, especially after making the list in 2024. The company currently employs more than 34,000 people, generates $15.64 billion in annual revenue, and has a market cap of $138.44 billion, according to the report. It received high ratings for its job stability, work environment, quality of pay, and professional development opportunities.

Though Texas Instruments is a semiconductor company, U.S. News included it in its "Best in Manufacturing and Agriculture" list. It also appeared in the "Best Companies in the South" and "Best Companies for Internships" lists.

Event services company Freeman was named among the top privately owned employers based in Dallas, specializing in corporate events like trade show, conferences, and exhibits. In addition to being included in the list of best overall companies to work for, Freeman was also highlighted in the "Best in Media and Communications" list.

"The company provides audio-visual services including stage rigging, lighting designs, creative direction and live streaming, as well as event technology services including polling and audience engagement enhancements, artificial intelligence solutions, and platforms for hosting virtual events," U.S. News said in the company's profile.

Other top companies to work for across Dallas-Fort Worth include:

Aimbridge Hospitality, Plano
Ben E. Keith, Fort Worth
Coach America, Grand Prairie
Integrity Marketing Group, Dallas
Lincoln Property Company, Dallas
RGP, Dallas
Sammons Enterprises, Dallas
Veritex Community Bank, Dallas

Interestingly, U.S. News named data center services company Digital Realty as one of the top employers headquartered in Dallas, but CultureMap reported the company relocated from San Francisco to Austin in 2021, and Digital Realty's own website says its corporate headquarters are located in Austin. However, the company does operate more than a dozen data centers in the Dallas area.

Other top Texas employers
In all, 30 employers headquartered in the Lone Star State made it onto U.S. News' 2025-2026 "Best Places to Work For" lists. Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth tied for the most employers to make the list, at 11 companies each. Diamondback Energy in Midland was the only company from West Texas to make it on the list for the second year in a row.

"'Best' is a subjective term relative to career satisfaction, and many aspects factor into someone’s decision to apply for a job with any given company," U.S. News said. "But some universally desired factors can contribute to a good workplace, such as quality pay, good work-life balance, and opportunities for professional development and advancement."

The best places to work for in Houston are:

American Bureau of Shipping
Calpine
Chevron
ConocoPhillips
Hines
Insperity, Kingwood
KBR
Men's Warehouse
Occidental
PROS
Skyward Specialty Insurance

The top companies to work for in Austin are:

Cirrus Logic
Dell Technologies, Round Rock
Silicon Labs
Yeti

The top companies to work for in San Antonio are:

Frost Bank
H-E-B
Sachry Group

us news & world report reports employers best places to work innovation dallas fort worth plano grand prairie

Under the Sun

Solar power poised to surpass coal for the first time in Texas

Photo by Bill Mead on Unsplash

Utility-scale solar generation has been increasing steadily in Texas.

Solar power promises to shine even brighter in Texas this year. A new forecast from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) indicates that for the first time, annual power generation from utility-scale solar will surpass annual power generation from coal across the territory covered by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT).

Solar generation is expected to reach 78 billion kilowatt-hours in 2026 in the ERCOT grid, compared with 60 billion kilowatt-hours for coal, the EIA forecast says. The ERCOT grid supplies power to about 90 percent of Texas.

“Utility-scale solar generation has been increasing steadily in ERCOT as solar capacity additions help meet rapid electricity demand growth,” the forecast says.

Although natural gas remains the dominant source of electricity generation in ERCOT, accounting for an average 44 percent of electricity generation from 2021 to 2025, solar’s share of the generation mix rose from 4 percent to 12 percent. During the same period, coal’s share dropped from 19 percent to 13 percent.

EIA predicts about 40 percent of U.S. solar capacity, or 14 billion kilowatt-hours, added in 2026 will come from Texas.

Although EIA expects annual solar generation to exceed annual coal generation in 2026, solar surpassed coal in ERCOT on a monthly basis for the first time in March 2025, when solar generation totaled 4.33 billion kilowatt-hours and coal’s totaled 4.16 billion kilowatt-hours. Solar generation continued to exceed that of coal until August of that year.

“In 2026, we estimate that solar exceeded coal for the first time in March, and we forecast generation from solar installations in ERCOT will continue to exceed that from coal until December, when coal generation exceeds solar,” says EIA. “We expect solar generation to exceed that of coal for every month in 2027 except January and December.”

For 2027, EIA forecasts annual solar generation of 99 billion kilowatt-hours in the ERCOT grid, compared with 66 billion kilowatt-hours of annual coal generation.

In April, ERCOT projected almost 368 billion kilowatt-hours of demand in ERCOT’s territory by 2032. ERCOT’s all-time peak demand hit 85.5 billion kilowatt-hours in August 2023.

“Texas is experiencing exceptional growth and development, which is reshaping how large load demand is identified, verified, and incorporated into long-term planning,” ERCOT President and CEO Pablo Vegas said. “As a result of a changing landscape, we believe this forecast to be higher than expected … load growth.”

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This article first appeared on our sister site, EnergyCapitalHTX.

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