Utah is a good place to be if you have a tech job. You’ll make more but have a lower cost of living than other states.
If you have a graduate now looking for a job in tech, a new report shows where they will make more money in Utah.
In the Provo area, which includes Lehi’s Silicon Slopes, the average tech salary is $96,000 a year. It’s $83k in Ogden and $81k in Salt Lake City.
“Utah’s average state salary is 65,000 a year. With the Provo comparison, that means tech people are making 47% more than the state average,” said Shea Drake, communications specialist with business.org.
Drake said not only does SLC pay less on average, but the cost of living is 5.6% more expensive and housing is 15.4% more expensive than in Provo.
SLC is 19.6% more expensive, with 49.4% higher housing costs, than Ogden.
But Utah still has better cost of living and housing than most other states.
Stockton, California, is home to the smallest difference between tech salaries and average state salaries, both in California and the US. The average tech salary is $73k, just an 8% increase over the state average of $67k.
Palm Bay, Florida, has an average tech salary of $159k and the state average is $50k.
Drake says there’s a lot said about STEM and tech jobs, and whether they are worth it. She says if not just for the money, it’s worth it in other ways.
“You might instantly think that something might be boring, or not for you. But that’s the great thing about tech, is that there is something for anyone,” she said.
The tech occupations they looked at included actuaries, research scientists, network architects, network support specialists, programmers, systems analysts, customer support specialists, database administrators, information security analysts, mathematicians, network and computer systems administrators, operations research analysts, software developers, statisticians, and web developers.