Data Analyst Salary in San Francisco (May 2025 BLS)

Data Analyst Jobs and Salaries in San Francisco (May 2025 BLS Data)

Dan Patiño

· AI Strategy & Innovation at Coderhouse

San Francisco shows up on most lists of US tech markets, but lists do not tell you whether the local market is deep enough to break into. The BLS counts about 10,460 data scientist roles in this metro, paying a median of $170,110, with the bottom decile at $99,170 and a location quotient of 2.61. Everything below comes from the BLS OEWS May 2025 release.

Median salary

$170,110

Entry level (10th pct)

$99,170

Concentration (LQ)

2.61

How big is the data job market in San Francisco?

Roughly 10,460 people work in this occupation across the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA area, placing it 2th among the 25 metros here and accounting for 3.8% of the national total of 275,600. The occupation is projected to grow 35%.

What do data analysts earn in San Francisco?

Half of data scientists in San Francisco earn more than $170,110 and half earn less, 41% above the national median. The interquartile range runs $130,430 to $212,970, with the top decile at $272,430. The reported mean, $174,830, is the less useful number here because a handful of very high salaries distort it.

What can you expect to earn starting out in San Francisco?

BLS does not break wages out by experience, so the closest available proxy for a first job in San Francisco is the 10th percentile: $99,170, against $67,240 nationally. Anchoring on the median instead sets expectations about $70,940 too high.

Is San Francisco actually a data hub?

The location quotient for data scientists in San Francisco is 2.61, meaning the occupation is far more concentrated here than nationally. In practice, this is one of the densest markets in the country for this kind of work. This is the number most salary sites leave out, and it is often more decisive than pay: a metro can post a high median while employing very few people in the role, which means strong salaries and a thin job market.

What about AI engineering roles in San Francisco?

The BLS has no occupation code for AI engineer. The closest published proxy is Software Developers (15-1252), which in San Francisco employs about 69,030 people at a median of $186,640, 37% above the national median of $135,980. The 10th percentile is $128,090 and the 90th is $273,400. Read it as the surrounding band for applied AI work rather than as a figure for the role itself, since AI engineers are distributed across several codes.

10th percentile

$99,170

25th percentile

$130,430

Median

$170,110

Mean

$174,830

75th percentile

$212,970

90th percentile

$272,430

vs national median

41% above the national median

Software developers · median

$186,640

How to get started from San Francisco

Location does not constrain the training, only the job search. The Coderhouse Data Analytics course is live online over 11 weeks, $595 at launch price, covering SQL, Python, statistics and experiment design, with a curriculum reviewed by Google, Microsoft and MongoDB. What it does not include is career services, which matters if the San Francisco market is thin.

AI Engineering

8 weeks · live online

Build AI systems you can explain, evaluate, and improve—not just demos that happen to call an LLM. Work hands-on with retrieval, RAG, tool use, agents, evals, observability, and deployment while learning the engineering judgment behind reliable AI applications.

See Dates

$595

Data Analytics

11 weeks · live online

Learn to turn data into decisions—not just dashboards. Build practical skills in SQL, Python, metrics, statistics, experimentation, visualization, and AI-assisted analysis, with live feedback from practitioners who do this work professionally.

See dates

$595

Frequently asked questions

How much do data analysts make in San Francisco?

The median for the closest BLS occupation, data scientists, is $170,110 a year in the San Francisco metro area as of May 2025. The range runs from $99,170 at the 10th percentile to $272,430 at the 90th.

How many data jobs are there in San Francisco?

About 10,460 positions under SOC 15-2051, which is 2.61 times the national concentration per worker. That ratio tells you whether the market is deep or just large.

Is San Francisco a good place to start a data career?

On the data: pay is 41% above the national median and the occupation is far more concentrated here than nationally. The entry reference point is $99,170. Weigh both together, since a high median in a thin market is harder to break into than a moderate median in a dense one.

What is the entry-level data analyst salary in San Francisco?

BLS does not publish by experience level. The 10th percentile, $99,170, is the best available proxy for early-career pay, against $67,240 nationally.

Do I need to live in San Francisco to work in data?

Not necessarily, and remote roles widen the market considerably. These figures measure where the job is located rather than where the worker lives, so a remote role at a San Francisco employer would still appear in this metro's count.

Where these numbers come from

All figures come from the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey, May 2025 release, for the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA Metropolitan Statistical Area. BLS does not publish a 'data analyst' occupation; the figures above use Data Scientists (SOC 15-2051), the closest published match, and Software Developers (SOC 15-1252) as the proxy for AI engineering roles. OEWS estimates are built from six semiannual panels collected over three years, so they are stable but lag fast-moving pay changes. Wages cover base pay and exclude equity and bonuses, which understates total compensation at large technology employers.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, OEWS May 2025