According to data from the BLS, the top five highest paying metropolitan areas for data scientists are: • San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA • San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward, CA • Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA • New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA • Santa Cruz-Watsonville, CA Annual mean salaries range from $123,600 (Santa Cruz area) to as much as $157,110 (San Francisco area) in these areas.