Occupation / job
Computer Programmers
Median annual pay. Half earn less than this.
Hourly at a standard 2,080-hour year. We do not yet have unpaid-time or cost data for this, so this is not an adjusted figure.
The middle half. A quarter earn below this range.
Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 · view
What this figure cannot tell you
It covers people EMPLOYED in this occupation. Anyone who trained for it and was never hired is not in the median above, and neither is anyone doing the work self-employed. No verified count of qualified people exists for this occupation, so this page shows none rather than an estimate. Why that matters · The occupations where we could source it
Who this suits
At $100,390 against a $50,020 national midpoint, Computer Programmers pays 101% more than the typical American job — $50,370 a year of difference. Read the entry requirements before the number.
National employment is 92,230. At that scale hiring is continuous, the market rate is well established, and your leverage comes from being credibly willing to go somewhere else.
Computing suits people who can keep learning after what they learned stops being used. The skill with the longest half-life is the habit of relearning, not any particular stack.
We carry no verified training length for Computer Programmers — BLS reports pay, not preparation, and we will not estimate it.
Who should not do this
$54,830 separates the bottom quarter of Computer Programmers at $75,850 from the top quarter at $130,680. At a 1.7x ratio the midpoint is a weak guide to your own first year — find out which end you would be entering at.
The bottom quarter of this field earns $75,850 — $36.46 an hour, $25,830 above the $50,020 national midpoint. When even the worst-paid quarter of Computer Programmers is this far ahead, the barrier to entry is doing the work of keeping it there.
Avoid it if you want a skill set that stays valuable without maintenance — this is the field where standing still is fastest punished.
No failure rate is shown, and the absence is deliberate: the 92,230 figure counts people already working as Computer Programmers, not everyone who trained and never got hired. Without a licensing register to divide by, a rate here would be an invented denominator.
What the spread tells you
A ratio of 1.7x — $75,850 to $130,680 — is wide enough that specialising inside Computer Programmers pays measurably. $100,390 is the middle of a range you can move within.
In cash terms the middle half of Computer Programmers runs $75,850 to $130,680 — $54,830 a year between the 25th and 75th percentiles, against a midpoint of $100,390.
Getting to $130,680, the 75th percentile, is worth $30,290 a year more than the $100,390 midpoint and $54,830 more than the $75,850 a quarter of Computer Programmers settle for.
The climb from $100,390 to $130,680 is $30,290; the drop to $75,850 is $24,540. A little more room above the midpoint than below it is the normal shape for Computer Programmers and for most paid work, and it is the reason the median is the honest summary rather than the average.
Converted to an hourly rate over a full-time year: $36.46 at the bottom quarter, $48.26 at the midpoint, $62.82 at the top quarter. The typical American job works out at $24.04 on the same basis.
What these figures are, and what they are not
Employers reported these wages for people already working as Computer Programmers. The self-employed are excluded, so $100,390 does not describe an independent doing the same work.
With no unpaid-hours or cost data for Computer Programmers, the hourly figure is $100,390 over a 2,080-hour year — a unit conversion, not an adjustment.
How this is calculated · Self-employment failure rates · What credentials cost and pay back · Look up something else