Best U.S. Metros for Compliance Officers: New York Tops List as Bay Area Leads on Pay

Across the U.S., compliance officers have a national median annual salary of $80,730 and national employment of 417,070. LaborCove’s metro rankings highlight how select large and mid‑sized markets differ from this overall benchmark by balancing pay levels with employment counts and Geography Scores. In the top 10 metros, median salaries range from just below the national median to substantially above it, while employment counts span from a few thousand roles to more than 20,000 in the top market. The LaborCove Geography Scores show that the highest‑paying metro is not necessarily the top‑ranked one, underscoring that these rankings blend several underlying factors rather than salary alone. National projected employment growth of 3.0% for compliance officers provides additional context but applies to the occupation as a whole, not to any specific state or metro. The metro comparisons below therefore focus strictly on differences in salary, employment, and LaborCove Geography Scores observed in the supplied data.

Nationally, compliance officers have a median annual salary of $80,730 and employment of 417,070, providing a broad reference point for evaluating metro‑level results. Within the top 10 metros, New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ has a median salary of $101,050, which is higher than the national median. At the other end of the top‑10 range, Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX reports a median salary of $77,760, which is lower than the national median. Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD sits just above the national benchmark with a median salary of $83,000. LaborCove Geography Scores also vary meaningfully across these leading metros. New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ holds the highest Geography Score in the group at 79.10, while Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD has a Geography Score of 48.38, the lowest among the listed top‑10 metros. These score differences highlight that LaborCove’s rankings incorporate more than just salary or employment alone.

New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ ranks #1 among 391 geographies for compliance officers, with a LaborCove Geography Score of 79.10. Its median salary of $101,050 is higher than the national median of $80,730. This metro also has the largest employment count among the supplied top geographies, with 23,380 compliance officer roles, compared with the national employment total of 417,070. Within the top‑10 list, it has a larger employment count than every other metro, including Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA at 17,700 and Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV at 13,820. The combination of the top LaborCove Geography Score, employment of 23,380, and a six‑figure median salary distinguishes New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ from the other listed metros in this ranking set.

Several high‑ranked metros pair elevated salaries with varying employment scales. Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA ranks #2 with a median salary of $94,810 and employment of 17,700, resulting in a LaborCove Geography Score of 66.06. Two Bay Area metros—San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA and San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA—rank #3 and #4, with some of the highest median salaries in the top 10 at $118,890 and $123,730 respectively. However, their employment counts are smaller than Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA, with 7,500 in San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA and 2,690 in San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA. Their Geography Scores of 64.29 and 62.16 are lower than New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ’s score of 79.10, underscoring that the highest salaries do not automatically produce the highest overall rank. Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV, ranked #5, combines a median salary of $100,200 with employment of 13,820 and a Geography Score of 61.53. Its salary is higher than the national median and its employment count is larger than that of San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA and San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA but smaller than that of New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ and Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA.

Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH ranks #6 with a median salary of $103,940, employment of 10,920, and a Geography Score of 60.75. Its median salary is higher than the national median and its employment count sits between the larger markets such as New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ and Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA, and the smaller markets such as San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA. In the Pacific Northwest, Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA ranks #8 with a median salary of $95,850, employment of 6,440, and a Geography Score of 51.42. Its salary is higher than the national median, while its employment count is smaller than Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH and larger than San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA. These metros illustrate how mid‑sized employment markets in the top 10 can still offer salaries that exceed the national median while differing in overall ranking and Geography Score.

San Diego-Chula Vista-Carlsbad, CA ranks #7 with a median salary of $101,230, employment of 6,120, and a Geography Score of 52.73. Its median salary is higher than the national median and its employment count is smaller than Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH but larger than San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA. Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX ranks #9 with a median salary of $77,760, employment of 12,530, and a Geography Score of 50.88. Its median salary is lower than the national median of $80,730, while its employment count is larger than that of San Diego-Chula Vista-Carlsbad, CA and Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA but smaller than that of New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ and Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA. Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD completes the top‑10 list at rank #10, with a median salary of $83,000, employment of 8,370, and the lowest Geography Score among these metros at 48.38. Its salary is higher than the national median but lower than that of Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH, and its employment count is smaller than New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ yet larger than San Diego-Chula Vista-Carlsbad, CA, San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA, and Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA.

These top 10 metros for compliance officers demonstrate that higher salaries, larger employment counts, and stronger LaborCove Geography Scores do not always align in a single location. For example, San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA shows one of the highest median salaries in the list but has a lower LaborCove Geography Score than New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ, which leads the rankings. The national projected employment growth rate of 3.0% for compliance officers provides occupational context but does not indicate how any specific metro will change in the future. The metro‑level comparisons in this article are therefore best used to understand current salary and employment differences, along with how LaborCove’s Geography Scores rank these markets today. Compliance professionals can use this information to narrow down metros that align with their priorities—whether that is emphasizing higher pay, larger employment counts, or top‑ranked Geography Scores—while supplementing these figures with their own research on employers, industries, and local conditions that go beyond the scope of LaborCove’s dataset.

LaborCove builds these metro rankings using authoritative U.S. labor‑market data combined with its proprietary LaborCove Geography Score. For compliance officers (SOC 13-1041), the national benchmarks and metro‑level salary and employment figures reflect Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) observations for May 2025. The ReportYear 2026 is the product year for this ranking, not the underlying OEWS observation year. For each metro, LaborCove uses the supplied median annual salary, total employment count, and a composite LaborCove Geography Score to produce a ranked list of 391 geographies. Geography Scores and ranks summarize how each metro compares on the metrics included in LaborCove’s methodology, but the internal weighting of individual components is not disclosed here. Readers should treat these rankings as structured evidence about relative pay, employment scale, and Geography Scores—not as predictions about individual outcomes. Career decisions should also account for personal factors, employer mix, and preferences that are not captured in this dataset, such as cost of living or specific industry focus, which LaborCove does not infer from these numbers.