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These are the cities where tech workers live largest

John Shinal
Special for USA TODAY

SAN FRANCISCO — If you're an American who wants to make more money, learn a technology occupation.

A view of the Space Needle in downtown Seattle.

If you're already a tech worker and want to live even more like the rich, move to Seattle or Texas.

Those are two of the main takeaways from the latest annual salary and occupational data on Americans, released last week by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The numbers, which cover the 12 months ended in May 2015, once again show the value of an education in the so-called STEM fields of science, technology, engineering and math.

Hiring hits 9-year high in Feb.

Workers employed in "computer and math occupations" in the cities with the most technology workers made annual salaries roughly 50% to 75% higher than the overall workforce.

Seattle tech workers, for example, made a mean salary of $108,350, or 78% more than the $61,000 earned by all workers there.

While that was the highest tech-worker premium in the 10 largest hubs, their counterparts in Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston and Austin also were paid 70% more than the mean worker's annual salary in those Texas cities (77%, 74% and 71%, respectively.)

Same is true in the burgeoning tech hub of Oakland, where workers in these occupations were also paid 70% more.

That means tech workers eager to live like kings and queens don't have to go work for Microsoft or Amazon, nor put up with all that Pacific Northwest rain.

Just don't mind the Texas heat or the Oakland traffic.

Computer and math occupations in Los Angeles (including Orange County), Philadelphia, San Jose and San Francisco all earn more than 60% more than their non-tech counterparts.

Within the largest tech-employing regions, Washington, D.C., tech workers had the "smallest" salary differential, at 54%, likely because of a preponderance of federal government workers.

A look at the numbers reveals other interesting trends among America's well-paid technical workers.

While application developers are paid better than systems developers in Silicon Valley, the opposite is true in Seattle.

Software developers and systems analysts were the hottest jobs in the industry, with more overall workers in nearly all of the largest tech hubs than other tech occupation, including computer programmers, network and database administrators, computer research scientists and computer-support specialists.

WHERE THE JOBS ARE

The title for largest American tech hub has become a matter of definition.

Silicon Valley — comprised of the Metropolitan Statistical Areas of San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland — employs roughly a quarter million people in tech occupations, or 251,000.

That's more than New York's MSA total of 212,580 — unless you count Newark and its suburbs to the west.

If you do, the Greater New York region has 280,900 tech workers, tops in the land.

Those include developers of software applications and operating systems, systems analysts, computer programmers and database and network administrators.

May 2015 Metropolitan and Nonmetropolitan Area Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates

If the data for Orange County is included along with the rest of Los Angeles, the region employs more tech workers than Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth or Boston.

Despite being eclipsed by New York, with help from Newark, Silicon Valley still held onto one important title outright.

Tech workers in the San Jose MSA earned a mean annual salary of $128,000, highest in the U.S.

Their counterparts in San Francisco earned $108,960, or second-best, and just ahead of Seattle's $108,350.

Meanwhile, though tech workers in Austin and Dallas-Fort Worth were paid relatively less in absolute terms than their counterparts in other hubs, they're paid far more than others workers in their own cities.

CHART 1: Highest salary premiums for tech workers among largest U.S. tech hubs:

1. Seattle, $108,350, or 78% higher than all Seattle workers

2. Dallas-Fort Worth, $86,810, +77%

3. Houston, $90,390, +74%

4. Austin, $84,660, +71%

5. Oakland, $105,160, +70%

6. Los Angeles-Orange County, $91,150, +69%

7. Philadelphia, $86,620, +65%

8. San Jose, $128,850, +64%

9. San Francisco, $108,960, +63%

10. Boston, $97,480 +58%

CHART 2: U.S. MSAs with the most workers in computing and math occupations (May 2015):

1. 280,900 New York-Jersey City-Newark

2. 251,000 Silicon Valley (San Francisco-San Jose-Oakland)

3. 185,200 Washington, D.C.

4. 147,400 Los Angeles-Orange County (Anaheim-Irvine)

5. 141,700 Chicago

6. 140,100 Dallas-Fort Worth

7. 126,600 Boston (including Nashua, N.H.)

8. 117,000 Seattle

9. 91,200 Philadelphia

10. 84,000 Houston

NOTE: BLS figures are by occupation, not industry, and include those who work for both tech and non-tech companies. Figures do not represent mean salaries in the tech industry, which also employs thousands of lower-paid, non-tech service workers.

Follow USA TODAY technology columnist John Shinal on Twitter: @johnshinal

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