Tech Salaries Jump Above $130,000

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 11, 4:06PM EST · Published Oct 22, 7:00AM EDT

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Tech Salaries Jump Above $130,000 — © Thinkstock

The global annual salaries of tech workers hit an average of $135,000 last year. The figure varies considerably by location. In most areas, the number is soaring.

According to compensation measurement firm Hired, tech salaries in San Francisco are the highest among U.S. cities at $142,000. Following that, salaries in Seattle average $132,000. Arguably, the two markets are the most competitive for tech salaries. They are home to many of the largest tech companies in the world. Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOGL), the parent of Google, is one of several Fortune 500 tech firms in the San Francisco area. Seattle’s largest tech firm is Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN).

Salaries in the two cities have soared recently. Two years ago, the average in San Francisco was $133,000. In Seattle, the number was $125,000.

Hired’s conclusions are based on “2017 data on technology workers, including software engineers, designers, product managers, and data analytics roles…”

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Tech salaries for some people may be capped based on age and race. Hired makes the point the black tech workers make $6,000 less than white workers. Tech salaries level off at age 45.

The hottest tech sector for compensation is transportation, where the average salary is $145,000. At the other end of the spectrum, financial tech workers make only $111,000 on average.

By role, product management employees make the most money at $145,000.

While it is not an apples-to-apples comparison, the average household income in the United States is under $60,000, a sign of how well the tech industry pays.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.