Top Metros for Transportation, Storage, and Distribution Managers: New York and Los Angeles Lead, High-Pay Tech Hubs Trail in Rankings

Across the top 10 metros in LaborCove’s rankings for transportation, storage, and distribution managers, no single location dominates every metric. The highest salary, largest employment count, and top Geography Score all belong to different metros. Most of the top metros have median salaries above the national median, but the two Texas metros in this list are below that benchmark. At the same time, those same Texas metros hold some of the largest employment counts in the ranking. Nationally, transportation, storage, and distribution managers have a median annual salary of $107,230, with 221,180 people employed in the occupation and a supplied national projected employment growth rate of 6.1%. The metro-level data provide a more granular view of how specific locations compare within that broader national context.

Nationally, transportation, storage, and distribution managers have a median annual salary of $107,230 and total employment of 221,180. Among the top 10 metros, eight have median salaries above the national median. New York-Newark-Jersey City ($133,640), Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim ($127,500), San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara ($177,400), Chicago-Naperville-Elgin ($124,120), San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont ($145,170), Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell ($127,520), Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue ($146,080), and Boston-Cambridge-Newton ($128,760) all sit above the national median of $107,230. The two remaining metros in the top 10, Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands with a median salary of $105,420 and Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington at $104,790, are both below the national median. This contrast highlights that a high LaborCove ranking does not require a metro’s median salary to exceed the national figure. On the employment side, the largest metro employment count in the top 10 is 12,260 in Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, compared with national employment of 221,180 for the occupation across all geographies.

LaborCove’s Geography Score provides a single metric for comparing how metros perform in the overall ranking. New York-Newark-Jersey City holds the top Geography Score among the listed metros, at 71.23, which aligns with its #1 LaborCove ranking. Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim follows closely with a Geography Score of 70.79 and a #2 rank. By contrast, San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara has a Geography Score of 62.99 and ranks #3, while Chicago-Naperville-Elgin has a Geography Score of 58.70 at rank #4. San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont’s Geography Score is 56.61 at rank #5. Within the top 10, Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington (56.11), Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands (50.83), Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell (49.65), Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue (49.54), and Boston-Cambridge-Newton (48.63) all have lower Geography Scores than New York-Newark-Jersey City and Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, underscoring the numerical gap between the top two metros and the rest of the list.

The salary data show that the highest median pay and the highest LaborCove rankings do not always coincide. San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara has the highest median salary in the top 10 at $177,400, which is above the median salaries reported for each of the other listed metros. However, it ranks #3 overall with a Geography Score of 62.99, below New York-Newark-Jersey City’s score of 71.23 and Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim’s 70.79. Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue also stands out with a median salary of $146,080, which is higher than New York-Newark-Jersey City’s $133,640 and Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim’s $127,500. Yet Seattle ranks #9 with a Geography Score of 49.54. San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, at $145,170, has a higher median salary than New York-Newark-Jersey City and Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim as well, but ranks #5 with a Geography Score of 56.61. These comparisons illustrate that LaborCove’s overall rankings incorporate more than just median salary.

Employment counts help quantify how many transportation, storage, and distribution manager roles are captured in each metro’s data. Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim has the largest reported employment among the top 10 metros, with 12,260 transportation, storage, and distribution managers. This is higher than the employment counts for each of the other listed metros and matches the supplied figure for the largest employment market across the available geographies. New York-Newark-Jersey City reports employment of 10,410, which is smaller than Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim’s 12,260 but higher than Chicago-Naperville-Elgin’s 8,570. Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington has employment of 9,600, which is higher than Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands at 7,840. Among the smaller employment counts within the top 10, San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara has 1,760, and Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue has 1,690. These figures are lower than the employment counts in the other eight metros listed.

LaborCove also provides a national projected employment growth rate of 6.1% for transportation, storage, and distribution managers. This projection applies to the occupation across the entire United States and is not broken out for individual metros. Within that national context, the metros in this ranking present different combinations of salary, employment, and Geography Score. For example, the two highest-ranked metros, New York-Newark-Jersey City and Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, have Geography Scores of 71.23 and 70.79 and median salaries of $133,640 and $127,500, respectively, alongside employment counts of 10,410 and 12,260. By comparison, Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington and Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands both have median salaries below the national median of $107,230, at $104,790 and $105,420, while still ranking #6 and #7 with Geography Scores of 56.11 and 50.83. When comparing metros, these figures can help frame how each location sits relative to national median pay and national projected growth, while recognizing that the growth rate itself is a national measure and not a forecast for any specific metro.

LaborCove’s metro rankings for transportation, storage, and distribution managers are based on authoritative labor‑market data for this occupation and LaborCove’s proprietary Geography Score methodology. For this article, we use: - National median annual salary, employment, and national projected employment growth for transportation, storage, and distribution managers. - Metro‑level median annual salary, employment counts, and LaborCove Geography Scores for the top 10 ranked metropolitan areas. The Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) reference period for the compensation and employment observations used here is May 2025. The listed 2026 report year refers to LaborCove’s product and reporting cycle, not the OEWS observation date. The national projected employment growth rate of 6.1% applies to this occupation at the national level only. It is not a forecast for any individual state or metro area, and we do not infer metro‑specific or state‑specific growth from this national projection. LaborCove’s Geography Score synthesizes multiple factors into a single value for comparing locations, but the exact weighting of each factor is proprietary. In this article, we treat the Geography Score, median salary, and employment as separate descriptive metrics. Rankings and scores should be considered alongside your own career priorities, since the data do not capture factors such as individual job prospects, specific employers, or cost of living.