Best Metro Areas for Credit Analysts: New York Tops High‑Pay, Large‑Scale Markets

Across the U.S., credit analysts have a reported national median annual salary of $83,510 and national employment of 64,390. National projected employment growth for this occupation is -4.4%, which describes the projection for the occupation as a whole rather than for any specific metro. Within this national context, LaborCove identifies 168 metro areas with data for credit analysts. Among these, the largest reported employment count for a single metro is 7,530, and that value belongs to New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ. New York-Newark-Jersey City also holds the #1 LaborCove metro ranking with a Geography Score of 88.19. The top 10 metros display sizable variation in both salary and employment scale. For example, median salaries in the top 10 range from $92,900 in Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN to $136,500 in New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ. Employment counts among metros with supplied employment data range from 40 in Burlington-South Burlington, VT up to 7,530 in New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ.

Nationally, credit analysts report a median annual salary of $83,510. Compared with this benchmark, several of the top metros show substantially higher median pay. National employment for credit analysts stands at 64,390. This provides context for metro employment counts: for example, New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ alone accounts for 7,530 credit analyst jobs, which is a notable share of the national total even though the exact percentage is not calculated here. The occupation’s national projected employment growth of -4.4% indicates a projected decline at the U.S. level. This figure is not a metro‑level forecast and is not used to infer growth or decline for any single metropolitan area in this ranking.

New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ holds the #1 spot in LaborCove’s metro ranking for credit analysts with a Geography Score of 88.19. That is the highest Geography Score among the listed top 10 metros. New York-Newark-Jersey City also reports the highest median salary in the top 10 at $136,500, which is above the national median of $83,510. It further stands out for its employment count of 7,530, which is larger than the employment counts reported for any other metro in the top 10 list. Because New York-Newark-Jersey City has both the largest reported employment count in this dataset and the highest median salary among the top 10, it is numerically distinct from other metros that may emphasize either higher pay or larger scale, but not both to the same degree in the supplied data.

Two California metros appear in the top three: San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA is ranked #2 with a Geography Score of 57.03, and San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA is ranked #3 with a Geography Score of 54.32. Both metros report median salaries above the national median of $83,510. San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara shows a median salary of $129,240 and employment of 330, while San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont reports a median salary of $122,590 and employment of 850. In this pair, San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara has the higher median salary, whereas San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont has the larger reported employment count. Compared with New York-Newark-Jersey City, both California metros have lower median salaries than New York’s $136,500, and their Geography Scores are also lower than New York’s 88.19. However, they still rank ahead of every other metro outside the top three in this dataset.

Beyond the top three, several East Coast and Mid‑Atlantic metros rank highly. Richmond, VA holds the #4 position with a Geography Score of 53.10 and a median salary of $105,430. Employment for Richmond is not supplied, so no employment‑based comparison can be made for that metro. Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV ranks #5 with a Geography Score of 48.60, a median salary of $114,700, and employment of 1,060. Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH ranks #10 with a Geography Score of 44.97, median salary of $101,890, and employment of 1,080. When comparing Washington-Arlington-Alexandria and Boston-Cambridge-Newton, Washington-Arlington-Alexandria has the higher median salary at $114,700 versus Boston-Cambridge-Newton’s $101,890, while Boston-Cambridge-Newton has a slightly larger reported employment count of 1,080 compared with 1,060 in Washington-Arlington-Alexandria.

Among metros with supplied employment counts in the top 10, Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN, Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia, NC-SC, and Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA stand out for their larger reported employment counts. Chicago-Naperville-Elgin reports 2,560 credit analyst jobs, Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia reports 2,190, and Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim reports 2,100. In contrast, Burlington-South Burlington, VT has a reported employment count of 40, which is much smaller than the employment counts in those larger metros. Burlington-South Burlington nevertheless reports a median salary of $120,480 and a Geography Score of 45.59, placing it at #8 in the overall ranking. Looking at pay, Chicago-Naperville-Elgin shows a median salary of $92,900, Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim reports $95,640, and Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia reports $100,640. All three have median salaries above the national median of $83,510 but below the highest metro salaries in New York-Newark-Jersey City, San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, and Burlington-South Burlington within the supplied top 10 list.

LaborCove builds its metro rankings for credit analysts using authoritative labor‑market data combined with the proprietary LaborCove Geography Score. For this article, the underlying employment and wage observations refer to the federal Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) program reference period of May 2025. The 2026 report year is the publication frame for the aggregated data and projections, not the original observation date. For credit analysts (occupation code 13-2041), we use the national median annual salary, national employment, and a national projected employment growth rate as context. The national projected growth rate is a U.S.-wide occupational projection and is not applied to individual metros. At the metro level, we rely on LaborCove’s reported median annual salaries, employment counts where supplied, and LaborCove Geography Scores and rankings. The Geography Score is a composite measure produced by LaborCove; while it incorporates labor‑market factors, we do not decompose or attribute the score to any single input in this article. Rankings and scores should be interpreted as structured guidance rather than absolute prescriptions. Career decisions should also consider personal circumstances beyond the metrics reported here.