Accountants and Auditors
Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN metropolitan area. Estimated employment 41,360.
Where you sit in the distribution
That is the median — half of accountants and auditors in Chicago earn more.
$82,360 in Chicago buys what $79,500 buys across the country as a whole.
Chicago's regional price parity is 103.6 — above the national average, so the nominal figure overstates what it buys. Adjusted figures for other metros are in the nearby-metros table below.
The same job, elsewhere in Illinois
Adjusted figures apply each metro's regional price parity, so the columns are directly comparable.
| Metro area | Median | Adjusted | RPP | vs. Chicago |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Springfield | $86,440 | $93,200 | 92.7 | +17.2% |
| Chicago This page | $82,360 | $79,500 | 103.6 | — |
| Peoria | $79,540 | $87,200 | 91.2 | +9.7% |
| Decatur | $76,720 | $86,800 | 88.4 | +9.1% |
| Bloomington | $76,510 | $81,800 | 93.5 | +2.9% |
| Rockford | $75,260 | $81,700 | 92.2 | +2.7% |
| Kankakee | $71,610 | $74,300 | 96.4 | −6.6% |
| Champaign | $69,670 | $75,200 | 92.7 | −5.5% |
Price parity and difference against Chicago are in the full table on wider screens.
Who pays what
Median offered salary from visa filings, which disclose employer, title and exact figure. Government wage surveys never publish at this level.
| Employer | Median offer | Range | Filings | vs. metro |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nav Consulting | $148,000 | $114k – $169k | 9 | +79.7% |
| Grant Thornton Advisors | $130,000 | $81k – $189k | 10 | +57.8% |
| KPMG | $127,800 | $76k – $250k | 10 | +55.2% |
| Ernst Young U S | $110,000 | $83k – $220k | 74 | +33.6% |
| Bdo Usa | $97,500 | $84k – $100k | 6 | +18.4% |
| Deloitte Touche | $76,000 | $57k – $118k | 20 | −7.7% |
| Deloitte Tax | $75,000 | $57k – $195k | 69 | −8.9% |
Offer ranges and filing counts are in the full table on wider screens.
Nominal against real
The same median, once as published and once restated in 2025 dollars.
Published pay rose 6.3% over the five years to 2025. Adjusted for inflation it fell 10.5% — prices rose faster than pay since 2021. The two lines meet at the right edge by construction, since 2025 is the base year.
How this page was made
- Wage data
- Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 release. Public domain.
- Price parity
- Bureau of Economic Analysis, Regional Price Parities, 2024.
- Employer pay
- Department of Labor, Labor Condition Application disclosures, FY 2025. The table draws on 198 certified filings across 7 employers.
- Inflation
- Real figures deflate by CPI-U annual averages (BLS, all items, US city average).
- Employment
- 41,360 employed in this occupation in the metro (BLS estimate; excludes the self-employed).
- Occupation
- SOC 13-2011, Accountants and Auditors. Mapped to our taxonomy as accountants-and-auditors.
Percentiles are reported exactly as released and are never interpolated between published values. Visa filings record offered base salary at time of application, exclude equity and bonus, and skew toward larger employers — treat the employer table as a floor, not an average. We take no payment from employers, recruiters or anyone else for how any figure is presented.