Top 20 cities with the highest tech salaries

Find out which cities have the highest tech salaries, and which ones pay the lowest.

Even though there’s a great demand for tech workers, it becomes a carefully calculated decision to choose which city will suit you professionally, financially and socially.

Dice’s 2020 Tech Salary Report has just made it a little easier. The report takes a look at the top 20 cities with the highest tech salaries. At the top of the list is northern California’s Silicon Valley, where the annual average, $123,826, has gone up 4.7% since 2018.

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As is the case with a move to a new city, it’s essential to give it an all-encompassing review. How does your salary fit with the rental situation, and eventually, home ownership? What are the outside-of-work activities do you like to do?

In other words, what does the evaluated city have in terms of music, the arts, restaurants, or whatever is most important to you.

Research the cost-of-living in a top city and you might find that despite a higher salary, living there would significantly cut the bump in pay.

For example, the No. 9 city is St. Louis, MO, and Missouri had the fifth-lowest cost of living in the United States for 2019, according to the Missouri Economic and Research Center.

Conversely, No. 1 Silicon Valley has the highest cost of living in the US, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

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Salaries are, unfortunately, flat nationally, but if you’re looking to grow, there are six emerging tech hubs to consider.

Seattle, home of Microsoft, came in second, with $109,628, up 4.3% since 2018.

Southern California’s San Diego was third, with an average annual salary of $109,428, up 5.4% since 2018.

The first East Coast city to make the Top 5 is Boston, and it is up 5.2% since 2018, at $108,438.

Rounding up the top five is Baltimore/DC at $103,816 annually, up 2.5% since 2018.

Of the top 20 cities on the Dice report list, two cities made the most impact with salaries rising significantly.

The annual salary in the No. 17 city, Columbus, OH, climbed 14.2% to, $92,017, and St. Louis is up 13.6% (since 2018) at $97,892.

Only two cities in the top 20 had salaries that went down rather than up: Philadelphia fell 4.5% and Tampa 8.3%.

Image: Dice

The Dice Salary Survey was administered online by Dice.com, with 12,837 employed US-based technology professionals responding between Oct. 14, 2019 and Dec. 17, 2019.