It's All About Location

The difference in the cost of living from one geographic location to another is a major factor in compensation for every type of employment. Development of user assistance appears to be no exception with average annual salaries varying significantly depending on where we choose to live and work.

Two areas that host large concentrations of high technology companies, Northern California and Massachusetts, provide the highest salaries. The Silicon Valley residents earn 26% more than the overall national average salary of $62,000. We received a large number of responses from California that allowed us to split the state into north and south regions. The south region encompasses the California three digit ZIP Codes through 931, while the north starts with 940.

We combined some states to generate a more dependable average. "New England" represents Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont, and Connecticut—but not Massachusetts. Washington, DC; Maryland; and Virginia are combined, as are Kansas, Nebraska, and Missouri.

While the average salary for the top four states is large, so is the variance. Two-thirds of the respondents for each of these states have annual salaries that deviate from the average by as much as $20,000. So, for example, of the 70 plus Massachusetts respondents, about 50 of them have an annual salary in the range of $54,000 to $94,000.

A useful resource for comparing average salaries between regional areas is the DataMasters Cost of Living Analysis. This calculator provides cost-of-living adjustments between most major American cities.

In contrast, the state of Washington has a tighter average with a standard deviation of only $14,000. This means two-thirds of the Washingtonian salaries are between $47,000 and $75,000. At the same time, the overall range in salaries for Washington has the second largest spread going from a low of $40,000 to a high of $131,000.