How far will a salary in tech take you in Atlanta? Hint: Way further than in most US cities

Founder David Cummings explains what makes Atlanta Tech Village a mecca for entrepreneurs. BOB ANDRES / BANDRES@AJC.COM

In recent years, Atlanta has made a name for itself among the tech community, earning recognition as one of the top five up-and-coming tech meccas in the nation.

The metro, home to the fourth largest tech hub in the country, was also recently listed as the second best U.S. city where tech workers' salaries go the furthest.

The ranking comes from researchers at Indeed.com’s Hiring Lab, a global career research institute.

Researches examined salary data from all job postings in 158 tech-related occupations with average annual salaries on Indeed between August 2016 and July 2017. Twenty-five metros made the list.

In order to make “an apples-to-apples comparison of unadjusted salaries,” researchers used a fixed-effects regression model for the various titles across the different cities.

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Analysts collected the latest cost-of-living data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, which is based on a variety of local differences, including housing prices.

Only metros with at least 250,000 people that met a minimum threshold of job postings with salaries for a given title were considered.

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Where do tech salaries go the furthest? According to Indeed’s Hiring Lab, the Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia, North Carolina-South Carolina metro region earns top honors.

There, tech workers earn an average unadjusted salary of $101,147 and an average salary (adjusted for cost of living) of $108,178.

The Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell hub came in second place.

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Here’s how the metro Atlanta region fared:

Overall rank: 2

Average salary, unadjusted: $100,380

Average salary, adjusted for cost of living: $104,454

Job title where salaries go furthest in Atlanta tech: Database administrator

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Though average tech salaries are actually higher in cities like San Francisco, California; Seattle, Washington or Austin, Texas, living costs in both the Atlanta and Charlotte regions are well below the national average and, according to Indeed.com, “far below the typical tech hub.”

Here are the top five metros where tech salaries go the furthest, according to Indeed’s Hiring Lab:

  1. Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia, North Carolina-South Carolina
  2. Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, Georgia
  3. Austin-Round Rock, Texas
  4. San Francisco-Oakland-hayward, California
  5. Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, Washington

Read more about the study and its methodology at HiringLab.org.