All Occupations

Figures on this site are anchored to the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) survey — the federal government's annual survey of wages across US metros, covering roughly 1.1 million employers and 900 occupations. Core occupations track the published OEWS metro wage tables; broader roles are modeled estimates calibrated to BLS wage ratios (each occupation page labels which applies). The median annual salary is the single most representative figure: half of workers in that role earn more, half earn less. The 25th and 90th percentiles bracket the range from early-career to experienced top performers.

The gap between median and 90th percentile tells you how much room there is to grow within a role. For Software Developer, that gap is typically 50–80% — meaning a top performer can expect to earn significantly more than the median with experience and specialization. Some roles (registered nurses, electricians, teachers) have tighter distributions due to union or licensure structures; others (software developers, physicians, lawyers) have much wider spreads based on specialty and employer.

Click any occupation to see the full breakdown by metro area, including cost-of-living-adjusted rankings. The COL-adjusted figure is often the most useful for planning a move: it tells you what your purchasing power would be at US-average prices. A Software Developer earning $175K in San Francisco may have less real purchasing power than one earning $125K in Raleigh — a counterintuitive result that falls directly out of housing costs.

The occupational categories on this page cover the six largest labor sectors in the US economy. Technology roles (software developers, data scientists, ML engineers) dominate the high-wage side of the distribution and concentrate in a handful of metros — San Francisco, Seattle, New York, Austin, and Boston typically pay 30–60% above national median. Healthcare occupations pay more uniformly across the country because demand tracks population, not industry clusters; registered nurses and physicians see tighter pay spreads between metros than technology roles. Finance roles concentrate in New York, Chicago, and Charlotte. Skilled trades (electricians, plumbers, HVAC) offer strong pay in most metros — often matching or beating entry-level professional roles — with lower educational requirements but higher demand.

Don't over-index on the national median for any single role. The 25th-to-90th percentile range is usually wider than newcomers expect, and the distribution reflects where someone falls on skill, tenure, and employer size — not just the role title. Entry-level and senior roles often carry the same job title but differ in pay by 2–3×. Use the percentile breakdowns on each occupation page to calibrate where your own experience fits, then layer in cost-of-living and tax differences to see which metros actually optimize for your situation.