Data Analyst Salary in San Jose (May 2025 BLS)

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

Dan Patiño

· AI Strategy & Innovation at Coderhouse

Two questions decide whether San Jose is a sensible place to start a data career: how much the work pays, and how much of it there is. Locally the median is $185,080, entry-level pay sits nearer $109,740, and the metro holds roughly 6,060 of these roles. Everything below comes from the BLS OEWS May 2025 release.

Median salary

$185,080

Entry level (10th pct)

$109,740

Concentration (LQ)

3.16

How big is the data job market in San Jose?

Market size first: about 6,060 roles locally, 2.2% of the 275,600 nationwide, ranking 11th of the 25 metros covered here. Growth projections for the occupation run at 35% nationally.

What do data analysts earn in San Jose?

Pay in San Jose centers on $185,080, 54% above the national median. Move out from there and the middle half of the market sits between $149,570 and $219,460, while the best-paid tenth clears $282,840. Mean pay is $212,760.

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

Starting pay is the number most sites skip. In San Jose the bottom decile earns $109,740 and the bottom quarter $149,570, against a national 10th percentile of $67,240. Those two figures bracket what a realistic first offer looks like far better than the median does.

Is San Jose actually a data hub?

The location quotient for data scientists in San Jose is 3.16, 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 Jose?

The BLS has no occupation code for AI engineer. The closest published proxy is Software Developers (15-1252), which in San Jose employs about 87,350 people at a median of $213,110, 57% above the national median of $135,980. The 10th percentile is $138,420 and the 90th is $289,150. 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

$109,740

25th percentile

$149,570

Median

$185,080

Mean

$212,760

75th percentile

$219,460

90th percentile

$282,840

vs national median

54% above the national median

Software developers · median

$213,110

How to get started from San Jose

Studying for this does not require being anywhere in particular. Coderhouse teaches Data Analytics live online across 11 weeks for $595, one class a week plus 6 to 8 hours of practice. You leave with portfolio work and a certificate; finding the San Jose role is a separate job that the course does not do for you.

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 Jose?

The median for the closest BLS occupation, data scientists, is $185,080 a year in the San Jose metro area as of May 2025. The range runs from $109,740 at the 10th percentile to $282,840 at the 90th.

How many data jobs are there in San Jose?

About 6,060 positions under SOC 15-2051, which is 3.16 times the national concentration per worker. That ratio tells you whether the market is deep or just large.

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

On the data: pay is 54% above the national median and the occupation is far more concentrated here than nationally. The entry reference point is $109,740. 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 Jose?

BLS does not publish by experience level. The 10th percentile, $109,740, is the best available proxy for early-career pay, against $67,240 nationally.

Do I need to live in San Jose 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 Jose 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 Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, 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