Where net builders are commanding the most important salaries

Web developers “take what a designer might put together and code the design” to create a website or webpage, says Dan Martino, the digital director and founder of 914Digital, a New York-based digital media company. “If you look at your browser, a developer has taken all of the graphics and coded it.”

By working with different programming language tools, developers create and deploy websites—and they can work on either the front or back end of those sites. It’s a relatively specialized skill set, too, which is what has traditionally made web development a high-paying career track.

How much do web developers make? 

As noted, the median pay for web developers in the U.S., per BLS data, is roughly $93,000 per year. But there are other estimates out there, too, and a lot of factors that can ultimately affect what a specific developer ultimately earns. For instance, salary data from Indeed shows average base salaries for developers at just under $80,000 per year.

And where a developer lives also plays a big role in what they might expect to earn, too. For example, Washington, D.C., and states like California and Washington—with large tech hubs such as Silicon Valley and Seattle—tend to see high average salaries for developers. But experts say things are changing.

“There’s been some movement away from some tech hubs,” says Nick Bunker, the Director of North American Economic Research at Indeed. “Some of the biggest declines,” he explains, in terms of overall web developer job numbers, “have been in San Francisco, Seattle, and San Jose.” That’s part of a broader slowdown in the tech sector, but Bunker says that developers “with the right skills, abilities, and ties to get in the door” will still likely command a good salary.

Cities and states with a large tech presence are one factor that can bump up developers’ earnings. So, again, states like California, Washington, Virginia (which is adjacent to the District of Columbia), Massachusetts (Boston), and Texas (Austin), tend to be in the upper echelon in terms of developer salaries. 

Cost of living

Naturally, different cities and states have varying levels of affordability and cost of living. A web developer earning an average salary in California, for instance, may not feel that they have the same purchasing power as a developer earning the same salary in, say, Wyoming. 

For prospective developers, this is something to keep in mind. And with remote work having become more common, there may be an opportunity to try and take advantage of negotiating for a high salary relative to local costs of living.

Web developer salary by state 

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

“MERIC derives the cost of living index for each state by averaging the indices of participating cities and metropolitan areas in that state,” its site says, weighing costs for categories such as groceries, housing, utilities, and transportation. Generally, and for simplicity’s sake, the higher the state’s cost of living index, the more expensive the cost of living. 

Here are how each state’s respective median web developer incomes rank, and each state’s corresponding cost-of-living index, per MERIC:

The takeaway 

Web developers tend to earn high relative salaries, but compensation can vary in a big way depending on numerous factors, including where you live. Generally, developers are likely to earn higher salaries in states that house 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, developers may have more options to gauge their options and try to live in areas with lower costs of living. But it’s important to also keep in mind that as of 2024, the tech sector is contracting a bit, and there aren’t as many jobs as there were a few years ago. 

“This is a slowdown for a position that, relative to other jobs, pays quite well,” says Bunker. “There’s been a notable pullback,” he says, but on a long-term trend, web development should still be an area of growth and opportunity.