Best States for Training and Development Specialists: California Ranks #1 While Delaware Pays the Most

Across the available data, the top states for training and development specialists show distinct combinations of pay, employment size, and Geography Score rather than a single pattern. Among the top‑ranked states, California holds the #1 LaborCove Geography Score and has the largest reported employment count, while Texas records the largest employment figure in the full geographic dataset. Delaware has the highest median salary among the top 10 states but ranks #10, illustrating that a higher salary does not automatically translate into the top LaborCove ranking. Nationally, training and development specialists have a median salary of $69,280 and employment of 458,300, with a projected national employment growth rate of 10.8%. These national figures provide context for evaluating how the highlighted states compare on pay and scale, but they do not describe state‑level projections.

Nationally, training and development specialists have a median annual salary of $69,280 and total employment of 458,300. These benchmarks frame how the top‑ranked states in the LaborCove data relate to national pay and scale. Within the top 10 states, several report median salaries above the national figure. California, New York, Florida, Massachusetts, Washington, Virginia, Colorado, and Delaware each have a median salary that is higher than the national median, while Texas has a median salary below the national level. New Hampshire also has a median salary above the national median. On the employment side, California reports 46,530 training and development specialists, and Texas reports 46,630. Both counts represent substantial shares of the national employment figure, but they remain distinct state‑level observations and are not national totals.

LaborCove’s top 10 states for training and development specialists span Geography Scores from 49.76 up to 75.08. California ranks #1 with a Geography Score of 75.08, ahead of all other listed states. New Hampshire holds the #2 rank with a Geography Score of 65.80, followed by New York at #3 with a score of 61.88. Toward the lower end of the top 10, Colorado ranks #9 with a Geography Score of 49.92, and Delaware ranks #10 with a Geography Score of 49.76. These scores are lower than the scores for the higher‑ranked states such as California, New Hampshire, and New York. The relationship between rank and salary is not one‑to‑one. Delaware has the highest median salary among the top 10 states at $88,570 but holds the #10 rank. By contrast, California’s median salary of $75,790 is lower than Delaware’s median salary, yet California ranks #1 in the LaborCove Geography Score. This demonstrates that the Geography Score reflects more than salary alone.

Within the top 10, California and Texas stand out for their employment counts. California reports 46,530 training and development specialists, and Texas reports 46,630. Among all geographies available in the dataset, Texas has the largest employment figure at 46,630. Comparing California and Texas, Texas has a slightly larger employment count than California, while California has a higher LaborCove Geography Score. California ranks #1 with a Geography Score of 75.08, whereas Texas ranks #4 with a Geography Score of 59.69. Florida also shows a relatively large employment count among the top 10 states, with 34,130 training and development specialists. Its Geography Score of 56.73 places it at rank #5, below California, New Hampshire, and New York but above states such as Colorado and Delaware.

Several top‑ranked states offer median salaries noticeably above the national figure of $69,280. New Hampshire reports a median salary of $86,050; Massachusetts reports $80,270; Washington reports $81,860; and Virginia reports $77,690. Each of these values is higher than the national median. New York and California have median salaries of $76,080 and $75,790 respectively, also above the national median salary. Colorado and Florida report median salaries of $75,790 and $71,990. Among the top 10, Delaware has the highest median salary at $88,570. The rankings indicate that higher pay does not automatically yield a higher LaborCove Geography Score. For example, Delaware’s median salary is higher than the median salaries in California, New York, Florida, Massachusetts, Washington, Virginia, and Colorado, yet Delaware ranks #10 with a Geography Score of 49.76, while California ranks #1.

Some states in the top 10 combine relatively high salaries with smaller reported employment counts. Washington has a median salary of $81,860 and employment of 8,130. Massachusetts reports a median salary of $80,270 with employment of 12,190, and Colorado reports a median salary of $75,790 with employment of 12,100. Virginia sits between these patterns, with a median salary of $77,690 and employment of 15,570. All of these employment figures are smaller than the employment counts reported for California, Texas, and Florida. At the extreme low end of reported employment within the top 10, Delaware shows 1,590 training and development specialists while having the highest median salary among these states. This contrast illustrates how employment size and salary level can vary independently within the same occupation across different states.

The national projected employment growth rate for training and development specialists is 10.8%. This projection applies to the occupation nationally and does not provide separate growth figures for individual states. Because no state‑level or metro‑level growth projections are supplied, the 10.8% projected growth rate cannot be assigned to California, Texas, or any other state listed in this article. Instead, it should be interpreted as broad national context when considering how the occupation may evolve overall. For relocation or career‑planning decisions, the data in this article primarily distinguish states by LaborCove Geography Score, median salary, and employment counts as currently observed, with the national projected growth rate offering only a general backdrop for the occupation across the United States.

LaborCove builds its rankings from authoritative labor‑market sources combined with the proprietary LaborCove Geography Score. For this article, the underlying occupational data for training and development specialists (SOC 13-1151) are based on Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) observations with a reference period of May 2025. The reported national projected employment growth rate of 10.8% is a separate national occupational projection, not an OEWS observation. The Geography Score integrates multiple factors internally to produce a single comparable value for each state, but the detailed scoring weights are not disclosed here. In this article, we only use the supplied Geography Scores, rankings, median annual salaries, employment counts, and the national projected growth rate. All projected growth figures cited are national in scope and apply to the occupation as a whole across the United States. No state or metro growth projections are used or inferred. Rankings and comparisons in this Insight should be considered alongside individual priorities such as preferred industries, personal networks, and non‑labor‑market factors, which are outside the scope of the supplied data.