If you are an aspiring tech employee in the US with a desire to earn well and save enough, Seattle is the best, not San Francisco, reveals a joint study by Pyasa, MIT and Zillow. Based on combined score for earnings potential and cost of living, Seattle scores above the Bay Area.
Along with San Francisco Bay Area and Seattle, Boston, Denver, Atlanta and New York offer high salaries but differ from each other over cost of living.
"We weren't surprised to see that where the average tech salary is highest, the cost of living also tends on the high side," Chris Bolte, CEO of Paysa, said in a statement on Wednesday.
"What jumped out at us, however, is that even though you can earn more in the San Francisco Bay Area than other places, with such a high cost-of-living, it's extremely difficult to get by on a 6+ figure salary," Bolte added.
But some of them offer a win-win proposition for tech employees, the study found out. For instance, Seattle, Denver and Atlanta not only offer high earning potential but also low cost of living, said a statement issued by Pyasa.
"...it makes sense that companies and employees are looking beyond Silicon Valley and taking advantage of new campuses in different cities across the US," Bolte said.
San Francisco Bay Area offers a tough bargain
At an average salary of $144,390, San Francisco Bay Area may sound attractive but it scores low when juxtaposed with cost of living; "it's at nearly $90,000 a year," the study said. "San Francisco has always been an expensive place to call home. According to numbeo.com, the average monthly rent for a 3-bedroom apartment in San Francisco's city center is $6,569.70," Pyasa said.
The study showed that about 61 percent of an employee's annual salary is spent on living expenses in San Francisco, leaving little scope for savings or other indulgences.
Seattle is the best
Seattle offers a good bargain for techies — an average yearly compensation of $139,299 and cost of living pegged at 41.3 percent, leaving around $81,770, or about 58.7 percent, for other expenses.
Citing hiring data, Paysa said that 52 percent of all the tech jobs in 2016 were offered by Amazon, Microsoft, Nordstrom, Oracle, and T-Mobile.
Atlanta, Austin and Denver fare below Seattle, given their overall value, based on a combination of salaries and cost of living.
Here are the infographics that capture the big picture (courtesy: Paysa):
