Where do web developers earn the biggest salaries?

Web developers “take what a designer might put together and code the design” to create a website or web page, says Dan Martino, the company’s digital director and founder. 914Digital, a New York-based digital media company. “If you look at your browser, you’ll see that the developer took all the graphics and coded them.”

Working with various programming language tools, developers create and deploy websites, and they can work on both the front-end and back-end of those sites. It’s also a relatively specialized skill set that has traditionally made web development a high-paying career.

How much do web developers earn?

As noted, the average salary for web developers in the United States is approximately $93,000 per year, according to the BLS. But there are other estimates, as well as many factors that can ultimately influence how much a particular developer ends up earning. For example, salary data from Indeed shows that the average base salary for developers is just under $80,000 per year.

And where a developer lives also plays a big role in how much they can expect to earn. For example, Washington, D.C., and states like California and Washington, with major tech hubs like Silicon Valley and Seattle, tend to have high average developer salaries. But experts say the situation is changing.

“There’s been a bit of a shift away from some of the tech hubs,” says Nick Banker, director of North American economic research at Indeed. “Some of the biggest job cuts for web developers,” he explains, “have been in San Francisco, Seattle and San Jose.” It’s part of a broader downturn in the tech sector, but Banker says developers “with the right skills, abilities and connections to get their foot in the door” will likely continue to be well paid.

Cities and states with a large technology presence are one of the factors that can increase developer earnings. So again, states like California, Washington, Virginia (adjacent to DC), Massachusetts (Boston), and Texas (Austin) tend to be in the upper echelon in terms of developer salaries.

the cost of living

Naturally, different cities and states have different levels of affordability and cost of living. For example, a web developer earning the average salary in California may not feel like he has the same purchasing power as a developer earning the same salary in, say, Wyoming.

Potential developers should keep this in mind. And as remote work becomes more common, there may be an opportunity to try to take advantage of negotiating a high salary relative to the local cost of living.

Web developer salary by state

Here’s how web developer salaries break down by state, according to data latest available data (May 2023) from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in descending order. You’ll also see the corresponding average annual cost of living index for the state. according to calculations by the Missouri Economic Research and Information Center (MERIC).

“MERIC calculates the cost of living index for each state by averaging the indexes of participating cities and metropolitan areas in that state,” its website says, weighing costs by categories such as food, housing, utilities and transportation. In general, to keep things simple, the higher the cost of living index in a state, the more expensive the cost of living.

Here’s how each state’s respective median income for web developers and each state’s corresponding MERIC cost of living index rank:

Conclusion

Web developers typically earn relatively high salaries, but compensation can vary greatly depending on a variety of factors, including where you live. In general, developers are likely to earn higher salaries in states with tech hubs such as California or Washington, where cities like San Francisco and Seattle are home to numerous large tech companies.

But with changes in the tech sector and the rise of remote work, there may be more opportunity for developers to evaluate their options and try to live in areas with a lower cost of living. But it’s also important to keep in mind that as of 2024, the tech sector is shrinking a bit and there aren’t as many jobs as there were a few years ago.

“This is a slowdown in growth for a position that, compared to other positions, pays fairly well,” Bunker says. “There has been a noticeable decline,” he says, but in the long term, web development should still be an area of ​​growth and opportunity.