Technology employees in the Los Angeles area have among the nation’s highest average salaries in the industry, with wages growing 5.4% in 2020 from 2019 despite the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
That clip is faster than the national growth rate of 3.6%, according to data from Dice, which offers an online recruiting service.
L.A.'s tech salaries, which averaged $103,150 a year, was also higher than the national annual average of $97,859, placing the area in ninth place among the top 25 tech hubs in the country.
Silicon Valley had the nation's highest average tech salary with $126,801 a year, a 2.4% increase from 2019. New York City ranked second with $114,274, an 11.6% rise, while Boston was third with an average of $111,069, up 2.4%.
Others in the top 10 were San Diego, California ($109,910); Baltimore ($109,525); Seattle ($106,723); Denver ($104,968); Austin, Texas ($104,150); and Minneapolis ($102,341).
Texas continues to grow as a tech state, potentially on the scale of California, Dice said. Both states’ tech hubs saw high salaries and steady increases, but Texas also boasted an inflow of prestigious companies building new headquarters and factories, including Oracle and Tesla.
Among the tech jobs with the highest salaries were IT management, systems architect, cloud engineer, cybersecurity engineer, data architect, program manager, management consultant, product manager and data scientist, with salaries averaging between $120,000 and $140,000 a year.
Technology workers also expressed satisfaction with their jobs, with 34% saying they were somewhat satisfied with their current salaries and 22% saying they were very satisfied. However, Dice noted that technologists may have lowered their salary expectations because of economic uncertainty from the pandemic, leading to higher levels of satisfaction even if they felt they were underpaid.
While Dice’s report last year showed the rise of “emerging” benefits such as wellness and volunteer opportunities, this year’s report illuminates the re-embrace of “staple” benefits such as health insurance and 401(k), which is likely a collateral effect of Covid-19.
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