A new report shows local tech pay is closer to San Francisco wages than previously thought, but Central Florida is among the lowest-paying markets across the country.
Tech jobs in metro Orlando pay 80% of what they do in San Francisco, according to a recent analysis by Carta Inc., a management platform for companies and investors. The report shows how Orlando and other markets compare to San Francisco, the top-paying market, as cities across the U.S. compete for sought-after tech talent.
Wages are an important factor in the competitiveness of a market for skilled tech talent. That's especially true during a tight tech labor market in which employees have a lot of power. Roughly 24% of tech sector workers looking for a new job in Q2, according to the Computing Technology Industry Association.
Here’s a closer look at what the Carta report unveiled:
Still catching up
If the 49 U.S. metros in the report all are chasing San Francisco, then Orlando is near the rear of the pack. Thirty metros were ranked ahead of Orlando in terms of compensation, while three others were tied with Orlando: Nashville, Tennessee; Provo, Utah; and San Antonio, Texas.
Carta’s report established four tiers for the metros.
The "Tier 1" cities where employees can expect the highest salaries are San Francisco; San Jose, California; Seattle; and New York City.
Orlando fell into Tier 3, putting it in the same tier as Sunbelt cities like Houston (88% of San Francisco wages), Charlotte (85%) and Atlanta (84%). Interestingly enough, Tampa (75%) and Jacksonville (61%) landed below Orlando in Tier 4.
Comparing to the BLS
Carta found every metro included in its report pays higher salaries than the averages tracked by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Going off BLS data, Orlando’s tech industry only pays 70% of San Francisco’s. In some markets, the disparity was much bigger. Miami’s was the biggest, with a 22 percentage point difference.
Remote hires surpass local hires
The report doesn't account for the differences in cost of living, and a city like Orlando typically is cheaper to live in than better-paying markets like New York or Silicon Valley. However, that may not mean as much considering most new hires don't live in the same places they're working.
So far in 2022, 62% of U.S. tech hires were people based out-of-state of the company, Carta found. Carta tracked the proportion of out-of-state hires going back to 2015, and this year is the highest on record. Out-of-state hires surpassed the 50% mark last year, when they reached 55% of tech hires.
Sales jobs lead the pack
Average salaries are increasing in basically every tech industry department, but it’s not the highly technical skills driving the biggest pay bumps. Instead, sales wages had the biggest jump between Q4 and Q2, increasing 9.06%. That was followed by a 8.9% increase for data positions and a 6.2% bump for customer success roles.
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