Commercial and Industrial Designers · SOC 27-1021

Highest-Paying Metro Areas for Commercial and Industrial Designerss

Source: BLS OEWS, May 2025U.S. metropolitan areas

Metro areas ranked by published median annual wage for commercial and industrial designers. Areas where BLS suppressed the median are not ranked (4 such areas are excluded here). Higher medians often track higher living costs — this is a pay comparison, not a ranking of where the job is “best”.

Top 25 of 117 metro areas

Commercial and Industrial Designers: metro areas with the highest published median annual wages, May 2025
#	Metro area	Median annual	Employment	Per 1,000 jobs
1	San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA	$141,310	410	0.4
2	Kiryas Joel-Poughkeepsie-Newburgh, NY	$119,490	80	0.3
3	Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN	$112,950	420	0.1
4	Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, MI	$108,180	1,760	0.9
5	Boulder, CO	$107,990	80	0.4
6	Wichita, KS	$105,180	170	0.5
7	Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA	$104,980	270	0.1
8	Baton Rouge, LA	$104,210	30	0.1
9	San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA	$104,000	1,250	0.5
10	Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH	$102,530	1,020	0.4
11	Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos, TX	$100,520	200	0.2
12	San Diego-Chula Vista-Carlsbad, CA	$99,650	430	0.3
13	New Orleans-Metairie, LA	$98,260	40	0.1
14	Colorado Springs, CO	$98,220	Not published	Not published
15	Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA	$96,260	2,080	0.3
16	Reno, NV	$96,060	40	0.2
17	Oxnard-Thousand Oaks-Ventura, CA	$95,800	70	0.2
18	Santa Maria-Santa Barbara, CA	$95,170	40	0.2
19	Cincinnati, OH-KY-IN	$95,160	350	0.3
20	New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ	$94,890	2,560	0.3
21	Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, GA	$94,680	180	0.1
22	Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI	$94,390	480	0.2
23	Worcester, MA	$93,680	90	0.2
24	Providence-Warwick, RI-MA	$93,220	230	0.3
25	Spartanburg, SC	$91,270	50	0.3

Full state and metro tables, the national distribution, and the pay map are on the Commercial and Industrial Designers overview.

About this data. Estimates are from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics program, May 2025 release, retrieved from bls.gov/oes/tables.htm on July 24, 2026. OEWS estimates describe metropolitan/nonmetropolitan areas and states — not city limits — and are not designed for year-over-year comparisons. See BLS methodology, our plain-English methodology, and sources. CitySalaryData is independent and not affiliated with BLS.