This post profiles America’s largest job markets for Writers and Authors (Standard Occupation Code: 27-3043). It is part of a series that profiles the major job markets for content creation-related careers.
The table below lists America’s 25 largest metro area job markets for Writers and Authors. It provides information on the total number of people in that occupation, the mean annual wage, the number of jobs per 1000, and the ‘location quotient’. The location quotient is the ratio of the percentage of jobs in that occupation locally to the percentage nationally. A score above one denotes that more jobs in that occupation are present in the local area compared to the national average, while a score below one indicates fewer jobs in the local area relative to the national average. Click here for more details on the data and methods employed to produce this information
| Rank | Metro Area | Total Jobs | Jobs per 1k | Location Quotient |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA | 6,580 | 1.15 | 3.28 |
| 2 | New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA | 6,220 | 0.72 | 2.04 |
| 3 | Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN-WI | 2,850 | 0.67 | 1.92 |
| 4 | Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV | 2,810 | 0.96 | 2.73 |
| 5 | San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward, CA | 1,430 | 0.64 | 1.82 |
| 6 | Boston-Cambridge-Nashua, MA-NH | 1,250 | 0.48 | 1.38 |
| 7 | Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI | 970 | 0.53 | 1.52 |
| 8 | Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, GA | 910 | 0.35 | 1.00 |
| 9 | Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA | 880 | 0.46 | 1.31 |
| 10 | Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD | 670 | 0.25 | 0.72 |
| 11 | Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX | 640 | 0.18 | 0.51 |
| 12 | Denver-Aurora-Lakewood, CO | 580 | 0.40 | 1.14 |
| 13 | Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA | 560 | 0.50 | 1.42 |
| 14 | Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, FL | 500 | 0.20 | 0.58 |
| 15 | Salt Lake City, UT | 490 | 0.66 | 1.87 |
| 16 | Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, AZ | 450 | 0.21 | 0.61 |
| 17 | Austin-Round Rock, TX | 420 | 0.39 | 1.11 |
| 18 | Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, MI | 410 | 0.23 | 0.65 |
| 19 | Baltimore-Columbia-Towson, MD | 390 | 0.31 | 0.88 |
| 20 | Raleigh, NC | 370 | 0.58 | 1.65 |
| 20 | Nashville-Davidson-Murfreesboro-Franklin, TN | 370 | 0.38 | 1.09 |
| 22 | St. Louis, MO-IL | 350 | 0.27 | 0.77 |
| 23 | San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA | 330 | 0.31 | 0.88 |
| 23 | Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land, TX | 330 | 0.11 | 0.32 |
Some observations:
- Los Angeles appears to be the top job market for working writers and authors, followed by New York City. There are sizable writer markets in Chicago, San Francisco, and Washington, DC.
- Salt Lake City and Raleigh are small, but they have sizable writer markets for cities of their size.
- The Texas writing market appears to be concentrated in Austin. The size of the writer markets in Dallas and Houston are small, relative to their size.
