Highest-Paying U.S. States for Software Developers: 2025 Ranking
Highest-Paying U.S. States for Software Developers: 2025 Ranking
California leads the May 2025 state-level ranking for software developers with an annual mean wage of $186,770. Washington follows at $171,040 and New York at $163,820. The underlying estimates are from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) program for Software Developers, SOC 15-1252, across all covered industries.
The metric is annual mean wage, nominal U.S. dollars per year, ranked from highest to lowest. Coverage is 50 reporting jurisdictions: 49 states and the District of Columbia; Alaska has no published state mean wage for this occupation. The data reference May 2025, were released May 15, 2026, and were checked directly against the original BLS state workbook on October 24, 2026. This is not a 2026 wage forecast.
Numeric source: one official publishing organization, BLS. Row status counts: 50 official_value, 0 industry_observed_value, 0 calculated_value, 0 official_forecast, 0 modeled_projection. All 50 state values were matched to the original BLS A_MEAN column; gaps, counts and regional comparisons below are StatRanker calculations from those source-published estimates.
California · rank 1 · BLS May 2025
Mississippi · rank 50 · BLS May 2025
49 states plus D.C.; Alaska has no published value
BLS May 2025 · separately published national mean, not the mean of state means
Overview: Which states pay software developers the most?
The highest published state mean is California’s $186,770. Washington and New York round out the top three, followed by Massachusetts. Those four jurisdictions all exceed $160,000; Maryland, in fifth place, reports $151,560.
The ranking uses mean pay rather than median pay. A state’s mean is the average wage across its covered software developer jobs; the median is the midpoint of its wage distribution. For the U.S. as a whole, BLS reports a $148,100 annual mean and a $135,980 annual median for May 2025. These are different measures and should not be substituted for one another.
State estimates cover both metropolitan and nonmetropolitan jobs. California’s mean is $38,670 (26.1%) above the separately published U.S. mean; this is a nominal pay comparison, not a cost-of-living advantage. The related StatRanker metro ranking uses medians and different boundaries, so its figures are not interchangeable with these state means.
Mean versus median in the three highest-paying jurisdictions
The three leaders show why a mean-wage ranking should not be read as typical pay. The same original BLS May 2025 state workbook reports median annual wages (A_MEDIAN) of $174,410 for California, $166,540 for Washington and $166,180 for New York. The corresponding means in this ranking are $12,360 above the median in California and $4,500 above it in Washington, but $2,360 below the median in New York. The direction of these gaps is observed; the data do not establish a particular cause. Medians are provided for interpretation only and do not enter the ranks.
Top 10 highest-paying states and jurisdictions
California’s mean exceeds Washington’s by $15,730. The remaining top-ten entries range from New York at $163,820 to the District of Columbia at $144,430. Among these ten jurisdictions, the first seven exceed the BLS national mean of $148,100.
| Rank | State or jurisdiction | Annual mean wage | Region / note |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | California | $186,770 | West · BLS OEWS · May 2025 · official_value |
| 2 | Washington | $171,040 | West · BLS OEWS · May 2025 · official_value |
| 3 | New York | $163,820 | Northeast · BLS OEWS · May 2025 · official_value |
| 4 | Massachusetts | $161,730 | Northeast · BLS OEWS · May 2025 · official_value |
| 5 | Maryland | $151,560 | South · BLS OEWS · May 2025 · official_value |
| 6 | Colorado | $150,940 | West · BLS OEWS · May 2025 · official_value |
| 7 | Oregon | $149,060 | West · BLS OEWS · May 2025 · official_value |
| 8 | Virginia | $146,340 | South · BLS OEWS · May 2025 · official_value |
| 9 | New Hampshire | $144,530 | Northeast · BLS OEWS · May 2025 · official_value |
| 10 | District of Columbia | $144,430 | South · BLS OEWS · May 2025 · official_value |
Official BLS OEWS May 2025 published annual mean wages, SOC 15-1252, sorted in descending order. The District of Columbia is a federal district, not a state.
Chart: Top 20 state-level jurisdictions by annual mean wage
Each bar is scaled to California’s $186,770, using exactly the values in the ranking table. The chart displays nominal annual mean wages, not purchasing-power-adjusted salaries.
Chart scaling: each bar width = jurisdiction mean annual wage divided by California mean annual wage × 100. Display widths are rounded to one decimal place.
Methodology and data provenance
Occupation and metric
Software Developers, SOC 15-1252, all-industry OEWS state estimates. Value = BLS annual mean wage (A_MEAN), U.S. dollars/year; higher means higher rank. Software QA analysts, web developers and computer programmers have separate SOC codes and are excluded.
Year and publication
Every included row targets May 2025. BLS released the estimates May 15, 2026; source archive extraction and row-by-row verification date: October 24, 2026. There are no 2024 wages, projected 2026 wages, or carried-forward values in the ranking.
Coverage and exclusions
49 states plus the District of Columbia have a reported annual mean wage. Alaska appears in the source workbook, but its A_MEAN cell contains the BLS suppression marker (*). It is excluded rather than assigned zero or estimated. Puerto Rico and other territories are outside this 50-jurisdiction scope.
Published vs calculated data
The wage figures and the separately reported U.S. benchmark are BLS source-published statistical estimates (official_value). StatRanker calculates gaps, ratios, region counts and the unweighted median of jurisdiction means; none is an official wage projection, actual individual salary, or BLS-published aggregate.
Source roles and cross-checks
BLS OEWS is the sole original numeric publisher for annual mean wages. StatRanker directly extracted A_MEAN from the original BLS state workbook and compared all 50 ranked rows: 50 exact matches, zero differences. Mappr and SignalBleed were used as secondary presentation cross-checks, not as substitutes for primary data or independent employer surveys. SignalBleed lists a national summary of $148,108; BLS publishes $148,100, which takes precedence. BLS A_MEDIAN from the same workbook supplies the California, Washington and New York median comparisons; O*NET offers an additional secondary validation of those medians. Census defines the regions. Conflicts are disclosed, not averaged.
Coverage and wage definitions
OEWS estimates straight-time gross pay for wage-and-salary jobs in covered nonfarm establishments. Self-employed workers, overtime, stock bonuses, nonproduction bonuses and employer benefit costs are excluded. A reported annual wage is not total compensation or take-home pay; see BLS pay terms for included incentives.
Reproduce the official state extraction
The official BLS archive is oesm25st.zip, containing state_M2025_dl.xlsx. To reproduce, select OCC_CODE = 15-1252, NAICS = 000000 (cross-industry), OWN_CODE = 1235 (federal, state, local and private ownership combined), and statewide areas. Read numeric A_MEAN; exclude U.S. territories and nonnumeric or suppressed values, retain D.C., and sort descending. Alaska is unranked. Direct source audit (October 24, 2026): all 51 state/D.C. records matching these filters were found; 50 published numeric A_MEAN wages exactly matched the HTML ranking (50/50, zero discrepancies). Alaska is present with A_MEAN = * and is not ranked. The BLS workbook also directly confirms A_MEDIAN for California ($174,410), Washington ($166,540) and New York ($166,180). The source ZIP SHA-256 checksum is 74d5be0e1df865517d22dc3bd1fc3a8af5f6f9e3052a2163143021505d8e04c6.
Sampling, rounding and limits
OEWS uses multiple survey panels to estimate May 2025 employment and wages. Published means are statistical estimates, not individual payroll records. The source values are displayed in $10 increments. Small differences between ranks may not be statistically significant. National figures come from the BLS national table, not a recomputed average of states.
StatRanker calculation formulas: Leader gap = $186,770 − $171,040 = $15,730; leader premium = ($15,730 ÷ $171,040) × 100 = 9.2%. Highest-to-lowest spread = $186,770 − $99,840 = $86,930. Median of 50 ordered jurisdiction mean estimates = ($132,150 [rank 25] + $129,860 [rank 26]) ÷ 2 = $131,005. Above-national count = 7 of 50 jurisdictions, or 14%. Census-region representation is counted from the top ten rows. Unweighted West median of state means = ($134,370 + $134,600) ÷ 2 = $134,485 (12 reporting jurisdictions); Midwest median = ($118,780 + $119,860) ÷ 2 = $119,320 (12 reporting jurisdictions); regional median gap = $15,165. These are medians of state-level mean estimates, not medians of individual employee salaries. Mean-minus-median examples use 2025 published figures: California $186,770 − $174,410 = $12,360; Washington $171,040 − $166,540 = $4,500; New York $163,820 − $166,180 = −$2,360. No population or worker-level weighting is used in the jurisdiction-median calculation.
Ranking scope: 50 reporting jurisdictions, with one official-value row per location; Alaska is a missing wage, not a zero. No modeled_projection, calculated_value rows or stale-year substitutes are included. All descriptive calculations use the directly verified BLS A_MEAN numeric values with results rounded only afterward. Differences are not adjusted for regional prices, taxes, employer mix, career level or hours actually worked.
Full ranking: Software developer annual mean wage by state
Search or filter the 50 jurisdictions with published 2025 estimates. Ranks refer to the full original BLS mean-wage ordering, even when rows are filtered or re-sorted.
50 reporting jurisdictions shown
| Rank | State or jurisdiction | Annual mean wage | Region / note |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | California | $186,770 | West · BLS OEWS · May 2025 · official_value |
| 2 | Washington | $171,040 | West · BLS OEWS · May 2025 · official_value |
| 3 | New York | $163,820 | Northeast · BLS OEWS · May 2025 · official_value |
| 4 | Massachusetts | $161,730 | Northeast · BLS OEWS · May 2025 · official_value |
| 5 | Maryland | $151,560 | South · BLS OEWS · May 2025 · official_value |
| 6 | Colorado | $150,940 | West · BLS OEWS · May 2025 · official_value |
| 7 | Oregon | $149,060 | West · BLS OEWS · May 2025 · official_value |
| 8 | Virginia | $146,340 | South · BLS OEWS · May 2025 · official_value |
| 9 | New Hampshire | $144,530 | Northeast · BLS OEWS · May 2025 · official_value |
| 10 | District of Columbia | $144,430 | South · BLS OEWS · May 2025 · official_value |
| 11 | New Jersey | $143,800 | Northeast · BLS OEWS · May 2025 · official_value |
| 12 | Connecticut | $141,260 | Northeast · BLS OEWS · May 2025 · official_value |
| 13 | Delaware | $138,110 | South · BLS OEWS · May 2025 · official_value |
| 14 | Nevada | $137,350 | West · BLS OEWS · May 2025 · official_value |
| 15 | Florida | $137,010 | South · BLS OEWS · May 2025 · official_value |
| 16 | North Carolina | $136,940 | South · BLS OEWS · May 2025 · official_value |
| 17 | Illinois | $136,540 | Midwest · BLS OEWS · May 2025 · official_value |
| 18 | Texas | $136,450 | South · BLS OEWS · May 2025 · official_value |
| 19 | South Carolina | $136,240 | South · BLS OEWS · May 2025 · official_value |
| 20 | Vermont | $136,100 | Northeast · BLS OEWS · May 2025 · official_value |
| 21 | Hawaii | $134,600 | West · BLS OEWS · May 2025 · official_value |
| 22 | Idaho | $134,370 | West · BLS OEWS · May 2025 · official_value |
| 23 | Montana | $133,550 | West · BLS OEWS · May 2025 · official_value |
| 24 | Arizona | $132,530 | West · BLS OEWS · May 2025 · official_value |
| 25 | Georgia | $132,150 | South · BLS OEWS · May 2025 · official_value |
| 26 | Utah | $129,860 | West · BLS OEWS · May 2025 · official_value |
| 27 | Rhode Island | $129,080 | Northeast · BLS OEWS · May 2025 · official_value |
| 28 | Maine | $129,040 | Northeast · BLS OEWS · May 2025 · official_value |
| 29 | Pennsylvania | $128,110 | Northeast · BLS OEWS · May 2025 · official_value |
| 30 | Minnesota | $127,530 | Midwest · BLS OEWS · May 2025 · official_value |
| 31 | New Mexico | $126,620 | West · BLS OEWS · May 2025 · official_value |
| 32 | Missouri | $123,810 | Midwest · BLS OEWS · May 2025 · official_value |
| 33 | Wyoming | $123,360 | West · BLS OEWS · May 2025 · official_value |
| 34 | Alabama | $122,840 | South · BLS OEWS · May 2025 · official_value |
| 35 | Michigan | $122,720 | Midwest · BLS OEWS · May 2025 · official_value |
| 36 | Wisconsin | $122,620 | Midwest · BLS OEWS · May 2025 · official_value |
| 37 | Kentucky | $120,730 | South · BLS OEWS · May 2025 · official_value |
| 38 | Tennessee | $120,560 | South · BLS OEWS · May 2025 · official_value |
| 39 | Ohio | $119,860 | Midwest · BLS OEWS · May 2025 · official_value |
| 40 | Iowa | $118,780 | Midwest · BLS OEWS · May 2025 · official_value |
| 41 | Oklahoma | $118,510 | South · BLS OEWS · May 2025 · official_value |
| 42 | West Virginia | $118,410 | South · BLS OEWS · May 2025 · official_value |
| 43 | Kansas | $116,560 | Midwest · BLS OEWS · May 2025 · official_value |
| 44 | Nebraska | $115,590 | Midwest · BLS OEWS · May 2025 · official_value |
| 45 | Indiana | $113,980 | Midwest · BLS OEWS · May 2025 · official_value |
| 46 | Arkansas | $109,590 | South · BLS OEWS · May 2025 · official_value |
| 47 | Louisiana | $108,270 | South · BLS OEWS · May 2025 · official_value |
| 48 | North Dakota | $107,000 | Midwest · BLS OEWS · May 2025 · official_value |
| 49 | South Dakota | $104,790 | Midwest · BLS OEWS · May 2025 · official_value |
| 50 | Mississippi | $99,840 | South · BLS OEWS · May 2025 · official_value |
No entries match the selected controls.
Status in every row: official_value, meaning source-published BLS OEWS estimates, not verified individual payroll records. Source/target period: May 2025 for all 50 entries. Alaska has a suppressed A_MEAN (*) in the BLS source workbook and is not ranked.
Insights from the 2025 wage ranking
Key Insight
California leads Washington by $15,730 per year in mean wage ($186,770 vs. $171,040). That is 9.2% above Washington’s published mean.
Notable Pattern
Only 7 of 50 jurisdictions (14%) exceed the BLS U.S. mean of $148,100. The unweighted median of the 50 state-level means is $131,005, computed from ranks 25 and 26. This is not the national worker median.
Regional Concentration
The Top 10 contains 4 West, 3 Northeast, 3 South and 0 Midwest jurisdictions. The West accounts for 40% of these ten entries. Across all reporting jurisdictions, the unweighted median state mean is $134,485 for the 12 Western jurisdictions versus $119,320 for the 12 Midwestern jurisdictions — a $15,165 gap.
Outlier
Mississippi is the only reporting jurisdiction below $100,000, at $99,840. The next-lowest is South Dakota at $104,790, a $4,950 difference.
What these salary rankings mean
California’s state mean of $186,770 is $38,670 above the national mean of $148,100, but the statewide figure combines a wide range of employers and local labor markets. It does not establish the wage that a particular California developer should receive or how much income remains after housing costs and taxes.
Mississippi’s published mean of $99,840 is $48,260 below the national BLS estimate. That is a difference between geographic group averages, not a verdict about comparable roles, seniority, employers, or purchasing power. The New York example also matters: its mean is $2,360 below its state median, showing that the mean and the midpoint need not move together. For job offers, the state median and local wage percentiles add context that the mean alone cannot provide.
Neighboring estimates can be almost indistinguishable: New Hampshire ranks ninth at $144,530 and D.C. tenth at $144,430, a gap of just $100. The table preserves the BLS point-estimate ordering, but does not establish whether this gap is statistically significant. Neither wage level explains the causes of state pay differences.
Frequently asked questions
Which U.S. state has the highest average software developer salary in 2025?
California ranks first on BLS OEWS May 2025 annual mean wage, at $186,770. Washington ranks second ($171,040) and New York third ($163,820).
Are these wage estimates for 2025 or 2026?
All ranked wages refer to May 2025. BLS published the May 2025 estimates on May 15, 2026. The figures are not 2026 projections.
Why are only 49 states listed, along with Washington, D.C.?
Alaska is included in the original BLS workbook, but its May 2025 A_MEAN is suppressed (*) rather than numeric. The 50 ranked reporting jurisdictions therefore comprise 49 states and the District of Columbia. Washington state is included separately from Washington, D.C.
Is average pay the same as median pay?
No. This ranking uses annual mean wages. BLS reports the 2025 U.S. mean for Software Developers as $148,100 and the U.S. median as $135,980. For New York, the reported state mean is $163,820 while its state median is $166,180. The ordering can change when ranked by median instead.
Does the ranking include stock compensation and bonuses?
OEWS excludes stock bonuses, nonproduction bonuses, employer benefit costs and overtime pay; some types of incentive or production pay are included under its wage definition. The data are not total compensation packages.
Are the wages adjusted for cost of living or state taxes?
No. All amounts are nominal gross U.S. dollars per year. They are not adjusted for local prices, rent, housing affordability, taxes or purchasing power.
Does the ranking include software testers or web developers?
No. SOC 15-1252 covers Software Developers. Software Quality Assurance Analysts and Testers (15-1253), Web Developers (15-1254), and Computer Programmers (15-1251) are separate classifications.
Are narrow differences between neighboring ranks meaningful?
Not necessarily. The BLS OEWS values are estimates based on multiple survey panels. The table sorts published point estimates; it does not test whether the $100 difference between New Hampshire and D.C. is statistically significant.
How were the additional statistics calculated?
Differences are high wage minus low wage; percentage premium = difference divided by comparison wage times 100. Above-national share = 7 jurisdictions divided by 50. The unweighted median of jurisdiction means = ($132,150 + $129,860) / 2 = $131,005. None is a BLS projection, and this median is not the median developer wage.
Sources and data provenance
BLS OEWS — May 2025 State Wage Data
Original numeric publisher. StatRanker directly read the state_M2025_dl.xlsx worksheet inside the BLS ZIP and verified 50/50 published A_MEAN values, the ranks and the suppressed Alaska cell on October 24, 2026. The same file supplied the three A_MEDIAN comparison figures.
BLS — Occupational Employment and Wages, May 2025
National 2025 annual mean wage of $148,100 for Software Developers; May 15, 2026 release. Not counted as an independent numeric organization.
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/ocwage_05152026.htmBLS — Technical Notes for May 2025 OEWS
Survey scope, worker coverage, annualization, wage inclusions and exclusions.
https://www.bls.gov/oes/2025/may/oes_tec.htmU.S. Census Bureau — Geography Program Glossary
Official definitions and complete constituent state lists for Northeast, Midwest, South and West, including D.C. in the South.
https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/geography/about/glossary.htmlBLS OEWS Data Type Dictionary
Official BLS measure definitions; datatype 04 represents annual mean wage, distinct from annual median wage (datatype 13).
https://download.bls.gov/pub/time.series/oe/oe.datatypeMappr — Software Developer Salary by State (2025)
Published June 19, 2026 by Andreas De Rosi. A separately presented BLS-derived table used as an additional check against the directly verified primary values. Underlying numeric publisher remains BLS.
https://www.mappr.co/software-developer-salary-by-state/SignalBleed — Software Developers Salary by State
Separate BLS-based reproduction used as an additional presentation check for the 50 directly verified primary values. Its $148,108 national summary conflicts with the official BLS mean of $148,100; the BLS value is used throughout.
https://signalbleed.com/jobs/software-developers.htmlBLS OEWS Pay Terms
Details on the compensation types included or excluded from OEWS straight-time wage estimates.
https://www.bls.gov/respondents/oes/payterms.htmO*NET — Software Developers median wage context
U.S. Department of Labor occupational wage interface providing a secondary cross-check for the three BLS A_MEDIAN values. Alaska A_MEAN suppression is established directly from the BLS XLSX. Median values are not used to rank mean wages.
https://www.onetonline.org/link/localwages/15-1252.00?st=CA
https://www.onetonline.org/link/localwages/15-1252.00?st=WA
StatRanker — Best-Paid U.S. Metro Areas for Software Developers
Related May 2025 BLS study ranking metropolitan areas by median annual wage; not used to supply state-level mean wages.
https://statranker.org/economy/highest-paying-u-s-metro-areas-for-software-developers-2026-top-100-by-median-annual-wage/Download the Highest-Paying U.S. States for Software Developers: 2025 Ranking dataset
Highest-Paying U.S. States for Software Developers: 2025 Ranking
The archive includes machine-readable data, methodology and source documentation. Quick human verification is required before the ZIP is delivered. Full Data Pack downloads require a free account. Free accounts can download 1 different Data Pack every 30 days; re-downloading the same pack does not use another slot. Annual Data Access provides unlimited manual downloads while annual access is active.
Download Excel + CSV Data Pack