Top Metro Areas for Marketing Managers: New York Leads, but High-Paying California and Northeast Hubs Also Rank Strongly

Across the U.S., marketing managers earn a national median salary of $166,790 with 395,240 people employed in the occupation. National employment for marketing managers is projected to grow by 6.6%, which provides important context for comparing local markets but does not represent a forecast for any specific metro. Within that national landscape, LaborCove’s top 10 metros show a wide range of pay levels, employment counts, and Geography Scores. Some metros rank highly with very large employment bases, while others reach the top 10 with comparatively smaller employment but higher Geography Scores and strong reported salaries. Several top metros have median salaries above the national median, while at least one large metro sits closer to the national figure. Taken together, the data show that no single metric dominates the rankings. The highest ranked metro does not have the highest salary among the top 10, and a metro with the highest median salary does not occupy the top Geography Score position. For marketing managers weighing relocation or targeting markets, the variation across pay, employment, and Geography Scores among these metros is a central finding of this analysis.

Two national figures anchor the metro comparisons for marketing managers. First, the national median annual salary for marketing managers is $166,790. This provides a baseline for considering whether a particular metro’s median salary sits above or near the national level. Second, there are 395,240 marketing managers employed nationally based on the supplied OEWS observations. National employment in this occupation is projected to grow by 6.6%. This 6.6% figure applies only to the occupation at the U.S. level and is not a forecast for any state or metro area. These national metrics frame, but do not determine, the metro rankings. LaborCove’s Geography Scores incorporate multiple factors, and a metro’s position in the top 10 can differ from what its salary level alone might suggest.

New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ holds the #1 LaborCove ranking for marketing managers with a Geography Score of 79.27. It also has a median salary of $192,840, which is higher than the national median of $166,790. New York-Newark-Jersey City has an employment count of 54,730 marketing managers, which is identified as the largest employment market in the geographic data and is higher than the employment counts reported for any other metro in the top 10. Within the top 10 list, New York-Newark-Jersey City is the only metro with an employment figure above 50,000. Despite some other metros reporting higher median salaries, New York-Newark-Jersey City’s combination of a high Geography Score, a median salary above the national benchmark, and the largest employment count among the listed metros distinguishes it within this ranking.

Several top‑ranked metros report median salaries well above the national median of $166,790. Among them, San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA shows a median salary of $231,370, which is higher than every other median salary listed in the top 10, including San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA at $220,480 and Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH at $213,910. San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara ranks #2 with a Geography Score of 62.73 and an employment count of 7,300. San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont ranks #3 with a Geography Score of 60.22 and 11,170 employed marketing managers. Boston-Cambridge-Newton ranks #4 with a Geography Score of 57.18 and 11,940 in employment. All three of these metros have higher median salaries than the national median, but none surpass New York-Newark-Jersey City’s Geography Score of 79.27. This shows that a metro can have a very high median salary yet still rank below another metro in the overall LaborCove Geography Score hierarchy.

Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA and Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN both combine relatively large employment counts with mid‑range positions inside the top 10. Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim ranks #5 with a Geography Score of 51.34. It reports a median salary of $171,900, which is higher than the national median of $166,790, and an employment count of 18,550 marketing managers. This employment level is smaller than New York-Newark-Jersey City’s 54,730 but larger than the employment reported for San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, Boston-Cambridge-Newton, Trenton-Princeton, NJ, and Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV in the top 10 list. Chicago-Naperville-Elgin ranks #9 with a Geography Score of 47.11, a median salary of $165,340, and an employment count of 17,400. Its median salary is slightly lower than the national median of $166,790, while its employment count is smaller than Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim’s 18,550 and larger than the employment levels reported for San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, Boston-Cambridge-Newton, Trenton-Princeton, and Washington-Arlington-Alexandria. These two metros illustrate that large employment counts do not automatically correspond to the very top Geography Scores, and that some large hubs can sit close to the national median salary even while ranking within LaborCove’s top 10 metros.

Some metros in the top 10 hold relatively high Geography Scores without large reported employment figures. Trenton-Princeton, NJ ranks #8 with a Geography Score of 47.59, a median salary of $208,440, and an employment count of 1,250 marketing managers. Its median salary is higher than the national median of $166,790 and also higher than the median salaries reported for Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim and Chicago-Naperville-Elgin. Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV ranks #10 with a Geography Score of 46.51, a median salary of $181,260, and an employment count of 8,900. Its salary exceeds the national median, and its employment total is smaller than that of New York-Newark-Jersey City and Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim yet larger than the employment figures reported for San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, Trenton-Princeton, and Great Falls, MT (which does not have a supplied employment count). These metros underscore that a location can appear in the top 10 with a mix of higher‑than‑national salaries and moderate employment counts, as reflected in their Geography Scores.

Two metros in the top 10 have notable combinations of Geography Scores and salaries despite missing employment counts. Great Falls, MT ranks #6 with a Geography Score of 50.77 and a median salary of $177,930. Its Geography Score is higher than those of Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL; Trenton-Princeton, NJ; Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN; and Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV. Its median salary is also higher than the national median of $166,790. Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL ranks #7 with a Geography Score of 49.12 and a median salary of $159,990. Tampa’s Geography Score is higher than those of Trenton-Princeton, Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, and Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, but its median salary is lower than the national median of $166,790. Because employment counts are not supplied for Great Falls and Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, comparisons for those metros in this article focus on their salaries relative to the national median and their Geography Scores relative to other metros in the top 10.

LaborCove’s metro rankings for marketing managers are built from authoritative labor‑market data and LaborCove’s proprietary Geography Score methodology. For this article, national and metro‑level salary and employment figures for occupation 11-2021 (Marketing managers) reflect Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) observations with a reference period of May 2025. The listed report year of 2026 refers to LaborCove’s product/report year, not the underlying OEWS observation year. National projected employment growth of 6.6% is a separate U.S.‑level occupational projection and is not an OEWS observation. LaborCove calculates a Geography Score for each of the 334 metros in the dataset and then ranks them. The Geography Score is a composite measure computed by LaborCove; its internal weighting is not disclosed in this article. The top 10 metros presented here are those with the highest Geography Scores for marketing managers in the current dataset. Rankings and scores summarize how each metro compares within this scoring framework. They should be considered alongside individual priorities such as desired region, industry mix, or personal circumstances, which are outside the scope of this data. LaborCove does not model job openings, employer counts, or cost of living in this ranking, and the national projected growth rate is not assigned to any individual metro or state.