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Pay · 15-1243

Database Architects earn $139,500 a year at the midpoint

Half earn more than that and half earn less. The lowest tenth are paid about $86,240, the highest tenth about $204,000 — figures from the 2025 federal wage survey.

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$139,500median a year · United States
$67.07an hour $144,440average 67,140people
Nine in ten people in this work earn between the two ends. The shaded part is the middle half — where most people are.
$109,37025th $139,500median $169,29075th
$86,24010th percentile $204,00090th percentile
$109,370a year at the 25th percentile, nearer a first job
$170,160best-paying state · California
$98,420lowest-paying state · Mississippi
+22%top state against the national median
  • Read the spread, not the middle. The median is the midpoint across everyone in the occupation, most of them years into the work. A beginner starts nearer the 10th to 25th percentile, which is why the spread is published alongside it.
  • What the figure counts. The figure counts base pay plus tips, commissions and production bonuses. It leaves out the self-employed, unpaid family workers, private household workers, and the value of benefits or profit sharing.
  • Where you live moves it more than your resume does. National figures. A state or metro area can sit far from the national number, and that gap is usually larger than any difference a resume makes.
  • Not in these numbers. Growth and annual openings are not in this dataset. They come from the separate Employment Projections tables, where an opening is a modelled ten year average and not a posted vacancy.

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, 2025. Retrieved through the BLS Public Data API on 2026-08-13. bls.gov/oes “BLS.gov cannot vouch for the data or analyses derived from these data after the data have been retrieved from BLS.gov.”

Among the best-paidNumber 32 of 788 occupations by median pay — in the top five per cent.
State matters a lotThe same job pays $170,160 in California and $98,420 in Mississippi — a gap of $71,740 a year.

Database architect earnings, from starting pay to the highest 10%

Pick the job, where you work and how long you have done it. The range comes from the published wage percentiles for that job.

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An estimate from survey percentiles, not an offer. Employer, industry, shift and credentials move pay within and beyond this range. Full wage page for this job →

Examples

Resumes written for this kind of job.

Real sheets, filled in end to end — for this job and the ones beside it.

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Database architect wages by state

The 43 states where the most people do this work, of 46 with a published figure: their medians range by 1.73 times. Figures are the 2025 survey.

State Median a year Where most start 10th to 90th Employed
California $170,160 $101,200 $101,200 — $227,900 6,210
Massachusetts $161,650 $123,670 $123,670 — $220,910 2,690
Virginia $160,360 $105,210 $105,210 — $210,160 5,260
Arizona $156,100 $99,730 $99,730 — $189,190 1,200
Colorado $154,560 $88,000 $88,000 — $195,510 1,950
Texas $151,370 $92,890 $92,890 — $200,390 8,270
District of Columbia $150,010 $82,220 $82,220 — $225,110 790
Connecticut $144,460 $106,040 $106,040 — $210,800 1,140
Illinois $142,500 $97,820 $97,820 — $193,950 1,590
New York $141,350 $82,540 $82,540 — $216,550 3,850
Rhode Island $140,320 $92,540 $92,540 — $189,810 160
Nevada $140,200 $72,500 $72,500 — $200,190 420
New Hampshire $139,990 $74,120 $74,120 — $174,850 120
Georgia $139,500 $102,400 $102,400 — $187,410 2,590
Florida $138,320 $85,880 $85,880 — $206,410 1,810
Oregon $138,250 $100,820 $100,820 — $175,600 730
Wisconsin $137,810 $92,660 $92,660 — $170,450 520
North Carolina $134,630 $81,230 $81,230 — $178,380 4,070
Nebraska $134,320 $91,560 $91,560 — $173,050 610
Hawaii $134,040 $93,780 $93,780 — $212,150 60
Maine $133,120 $86,880 $86,880 — $159,620 190
Minnesota $133,050 $94,220 $94,220 — $169,380 1,240
Maryland $132,940 $80,090 $80,090 — $205,320 1,370
Ohio $132,910 $94,530 $94,530 — $174,260 1,820
Indiana $132,830 $83,480 $83,480 — $172,460 500
Utah $131,740 $97,990 $97,990 — $198,920 630
Michigan $131,000 $79,810 $79,810 — $174,060 1,390
South Carolina $130,000 $84,300 $84,300 — $183,700 1,160
Kansas $129,990 $81,790 $81,790 — $165,330 360
Washington $128,760 $101,970 $101,970 — $195,590 2,990
Kentucky $125,400 $74,140 $74,140 — $173,110 350
Iowa $124,040 $78,660 $78,660 — $159,790 240
Idaho $121,380 $79,140 $79,140 — $187,440 260
New Jersey $120,790 $86,230 $86,230 — $197,950 3,090
New Mexico $117,950 $70,870 $70,870 — $165,440 120
Tennessee $115,170 $73,440 $73,440 — $170,520 650
Alaska $112,500 $65,060 $65,060 — $130,500 70
Missouri $110,570 $64,420 $64,420 — $166,610 1,410
Oklahoma $110,110 $82,820 $82,820 — $173,990 860
North Dakota $109,430 $86,370 $86,370 — $138,250 60
Alabama $105,450 $78,400 $78,400 — $172,890 270
Arkansas $104,070 $74,700 $74,700 — $162,920 360
Mississippi $98,420 $61,030 $61,030 — $137,340 100

No estimate is published for 3 states: the survey withholds a figure when too few employers report it. Nothing has been filled in for them.

Database architect pay rate, hourly to annual

Starts at this job’s median. Change the rate or the hours; a full-time year is 40 hours for 52 weeks.

$139,506a year

Resumes for database architects

Name the job in the builder and the duties, skills and credentials it is screened on are written in for you.

Apache KafkaMicrosoft Azure softwareApache SparkMongoDBGitHubUNIX ShellAmazon Web Services AWS softwareNoSQL
  • Developed and documented database architectures.
  • Collaborated with system architects, software architects, design analysts, and others to understand business or industry requirements.
  • Developed database architectural strategies at the modeling, design and implementation stages to address business or industry requirements.

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This page includes information from the O*NET 31.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. The owner of tiersi.com has modified all or some of this information. USDOL/ETA has not approved, endorsed, or tested these modifications.

Place 32 of 788 by median pay

Better paid than 96% of the occupations in the survey.

  1. 30 Pharmacists $140,910
  2. 31 Computer and Information Research Scientists $140,300
  3. 32 Database Architects $139,500
  4. 33 Optometrists $136,570
  5. 34 Software developers $135,980

Nearby work, and what it pays

Occupations in the same group of the federal classification — the usual next steps, or the ones beside this one.

Database Architects$139,500
Computer Network Architects$134,050−$5,450 Database Administrators$104,620−$34,880 Network and Computer Systems Administrators$99,130−$40,370

Questions people ask most

What is a database architect’s yearly income?

A database architect makes a median of $139,500 a year (2025 survey). The middle half earn between $109,370 and $169,290.

What is a database architect’s hourly pay rate?

The median pay rate is $67.07 an hour; the average is $144,440 a year.

What is the starting pay for a database architect?

Starting pay is usually near the 25th percentile, $109,370 a year, and sometimes as low as the 10th, $86,240.

Which state pays database architects the most?

California, with a median of $170,160 a year.

How many people work as database architects?

About 67,140 in the United States — number 32 of 788 occupations by median pay.

Work that pays nearly the same

Median pay within $2,580 of what database architects earn — $139,500 a year — but not always the same spread.

See all 788 occupations