Best States for Market Research Analysts: California Ranks #1 as High-Pay Hubs Stretch from Massachusetts to Colorado

Overall, LaborCove’s state rankings show that the best markets for market research analysts and marketing specialists differ meaningfully on pay, employment, and Geography Scores. Several top-ranked states—such as California, New York, and Massachusetts—pair median salaries above the national figure with larger or mid-sized employment counts, while some others, like Delaware, combine high pay with relatively small employment totals. The national projected employment growth rate for this occupation is 6.7%. That projection applies to the occupation as a whole across the United States and does not indicate how fast any individual state in this ranking may change over time.

Before looking at individual states, it helps to understand the national baseline for this occupation. For market research analysts and marketing specialists, the national median annual salary is $78,760. National employment for this role is 899,580. At the national level, projected employment growth for this occupation is 6.7%, which describes expectations for the United States as a whole rather than for any particular state. LaborCove’s state rankings should be interpreted in light of that baseline: they identify where the top‑ranked states sit relative to the national salary and employment context, using LaborCove’s Geography Score to synthesize multiple metrics.

All of LaborCove’s top 10 states for market research analysts and marketing specialists report median salaries at or above $72,520. Within that group, every state has a median salary above the national figure of $78,760 except Texas at $72,520 and Florida at $75,450. Massachusetts has the highest median salary among the top 10 at $101,810, followed closely by Delaware at $101,270 and New York at $98,580. California’s median salary is $94,700, while Washington and Colorado report median salaries of $95,120 and $93,050, respectively. New Jersey and Minnesota complete the group with median salaries of $88,190 and $87,510. These differences underscore that high pay is common but not uniform across the top‑ranked states. Some states in this group, including Massachusetts and Delaware, have median salaries above $100,000, while others, including Texas and Florida, have median salaries below the national median.

LaborCove’s data also highlights substantial variation in the number of market research analyst and marketing specialist jobs among the top 10 states. California has the largest employment count in the ranking at 119,070, which also matches the largest employment market figure supplied in the evidence. New York has the second‑largest employment total in this group at 80,500. Texas and Florida also have relatively large employment counts among the top 10, at 63,350 and 60,770 respectively, compared with smaller totals in states such as Delaware at 3,570. States like Massachusetts, Colorado, New Jersey, Washington, and Minnesota fall between these extremes, with employment counts ranging from 21,280 in Minnesota to 39,710 in Massachusetts and 27,880 in Colorado. These figures show that top‑ranked states span a wide band of employment levels, from very large labor markets to much smaller ones, even when they share similar ranking status.

LaborCove’s Geography Score provides a single ranking measure that does not always move in lockstep with salary or employment. California ranks #1 with a Geography Score of 82.45, ahead of New York at 74.35 and Massachusetts at 66.36. Massachusetts, despite having the highest median salary in the top 10 at $101,810, ranks #3 rather than #1. Delaware offers a median salary of $101,270—very close to Massachusetts—but places #8 with a Geography Score of 49.45. Other examples reinforce this pattern. Washington (#4) and Colorado (#5) have median salaries of $95,120 and $93,050 and Geography Scores of 56.13 and 55.43, while New Jersey (#6) and Minnesota (#10) have median salaries of $88,190 and $87,510 with Geography Scores of 51.19 and 46.91. These contrasts illustrate that LaborCove’s rankings incorporate more than a single metric such as pay, leading to different positions for states with broadly similar salaries.

Looking across both salary and employment clarifies how different top‑ranked states balance those two dimensions. California and New York combine median salaries above the national figure—$94,700 and $98,580, respectively—with the two largest employment counts in the top 10 at 119,070 and 80,500. By contrast, Delaware’s employment count of 3,570 is much smaller, even though its median salary of $101,270 is one of the highest in the group. Texas and Florida illustrate another configuration: they have relatively large employment counts in this ranking—63,350 and 60,770—while their median salaries of $72,520 and $75,450 are below the national median of $78,760. Massachusetts and Colorado, with median salaries of $101,810 and $93,050 and employment counts of 39,710 and 27,880, fall between the largest and smallest employment totals while maintaining pay levels above the national benchmark.

LaborCove builds these rankings using authoritative U.S. labor‑market data and its own LaborCove Geography Score methodology. For this article, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) observations refer to May 2025. Report year 2026 is the product year for this Insight and does not change the underlying OEWS reference period. For market research analysts and marketing specialists (occupation code 13-1161), LaborCove combines each state’s median annual salary, employment count, and other internal factors into a single Geography Score. Those scores are then used to rank states from strongest to weakest within the available geography set. Because the Geography Score is a composite, a state with the highest salary is not guaranteed to rank first overall, and a state with a large employment count may still place behind smaller markets. The national projected employment growth rate represents a separate occupational projection at the national level, not a state or metro forecast. These rankings are one input into a career decision. Individual priorities—such as preferred region, non-work considerations, or factors not captured in this dataset—remain important when evaluating where to live and work.