America's 10 Best Cities To Live In And How They Stack Up For PHP Developers
I love Nashville, TN. Well, ok, I really like it. It's a great town but I'm getting a bit restless. The problem I face is that I never know what the environment for programmers will be in a given city before moving there. So when Terry Chay briefly mentioned indeed.com's salary search tool, it sparked my interest. If I, a PHP programmer, wanted to move to another city in the US, how would I fare salary wise? Since I don't want to list every city in the US, I've selected CNN/Money's Best Places to Live in America as my list of cities to compare.
I've compiled all of this into a nice 1990's looking HTML table, complete with border=1, for your viewing pleasure.
Now I don't pretend that there is anything scientific or even serious about this information. Please don't base your job hunting efforts on the fact that "Cal said I could make X in that city." At best, this should be used as a guide and at worst, it's just entertainment.
| Rank | City, State | Average PHP Salary | Cost of Living Index |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Fort Collins, CO | $42,000 | 99 |
| 2 | Naperville, IL | $64,000 | 115.2 * |
| 3 | Sugar Land, TX | $61,000 | 87.2 * |
| 4 | Columbia/Ellicott City, MD | $71,000 | 110.3 * |
| 5 | Cary, NC | $59,000 | 97.2 * |
| 6 | Overland Park, KS | $50,000 | 80.5 * |
| 7 | Scottsdale, AZ | $50,000 | 107.8 * |
| 8 | Boise, ID | $36,000 | 89.7 |
| 9 | Fairfield, CT | $66,000 | 163.4 * |
| 10 | Eden Prairie, MN | $53,000 | 113.9 * |
Since a lot of people are hung up these days on how things look, here is the chart I generated from indeed.com. If you click on it, it will take you to the live page and you can add your city into the mix and see how you stack up. I did and let just say Nashville is no Columbia, MD.
So it's agreed then, we'll all meet in Columbia, MD. :) We all know that the cost of living varies greatly from region to region. To help adjust for that, I went to bestplaces.net and found the cost of living index for each city or at least the nearest listed city for each city in our list. The COLI uses the US average as 100.
indeed.com also has a forum for php developers where you can join in a discussion on jobs, salary and other fun stuff. Make sure you drop on by and see them.
=C=
Disclaimer: CNN, Money, indeed.com, bestplaces.net and Terry Chay have not authorized or endorsed this article. They hold their own copyrights, trademarks, patents, service marks and coffee cups. I do not pretend to usurp their power in controlling these. I only mention them as way of attribution.
Comments
You make me laugh Mr. Evans. :)
I Agree Above that
http://omniti.com/contact
because i know php
what is the process
:)
I also looked at San Francisco, just for comparison, and the average PHP salary there is $70,000 with a cost-of-living index of 207.7!!!
I calculated these with the following formula:
Salary * (1 + (100 - Index / 100)) = Leveled-out Salary
<pre>
1. Fort Collins, CO - $42,420
2. Naperville, IL - $54,272
3. Sugar Land, TX - $68,808
4. Columbia, MD - $63,687
5. Cary, NC - $60,652
6. Overland Park, KS - $59,750
7. Scottsdale, AZ - $46,100
8. Boise, ID - $39,708
9. Fairfield, CT - $24,156
10. Eden Prairie, MN - $45,633
</pre>
I applied the same calculation to Atlanta and San Francisco (as noted in my comment above).
Atlanta: $66,816
San Francisco: ($5,390)
So, from this analysis, clearly the best city to live in as a PHP developer is Sugar Land, TX, with Atlanta, GA following as a close second. The worst place is San Francisco, where you actually pay your employer $5,390 a year to work.
;-)
Think you got the tin? email acrossley at dealerspan dot com!
Salary * 100 / Index = Leveled-out Salary
According to yours, developers pay to be able to work in San Franscisco intead of being paid :)
It's more like 102, not the listed 87.2. Median salary is 101k and that gives the family 99k of buying power. The listed COL index must have been pulled from Houston.