2026 Edition · An annual reference on what work pays

Human Resources Specialists

Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA metropolitan area. Estimated employment 14,120.

Data released May 2025 BLS OEWS · SOC 13-1071
Fig. 1 — The wage rule

Where you sit in the distribution

Drag the marker, or type a figure
$92,770 · 50th
$58,61010th
$73,86025th
$92,77050th
$124,38075th
$153,96090th

That is the medianhalf of human resources specialists in Seattle earn more.

Table 1 — Adjusted

$92,770 in Seattle buys what $83,500 buys across the country as a whole.

Seattle's regional price parity is 111.1 — well above the national average — a dollar here buys noticeably less than in the US as a whole. Adjusted figures for other metros are in the nearby-metros table below.

Table 2 — Nearby metros

The same job, elsewhere in Washington

Adjusted figures apply each metro's regional price parity, so the columns are directly comparable.

Metro areaMedianAdjustedRPPvs. Seattle
Seattle This page$92,770$83,500111.1
Bremerton$90,290$85,500105.6+2.4%
Olympia$86,700$83,600103.7+0.2%
Kennewick$81,290$81,200100.1−2.7%
Walla Walla$80,730$81,90098.5−1.8%
Mount Vernon$78,800$76,900102.4−7.9%
Bellingham$78,160$75,600103.3−9.4%
Wenatchee$77,920$75,000103.9−10.1%

Price parity and difference against Seattle are in the full table on wider screens.

Fig. 2 — Five-year trend

Nominal against real

The same median, once as published and once restated in 2025 dollars.

70k80k90k100k 20212022202320242025
Nominal, as published Real, in 2025 dollars US$ thousands

Published pay rose 16.1% over the five years to 2025. Adjusted for inflation it fell 2.3% — prices rose faster than pay since 2021. The two lines meet at the right edge by construction, since 2025 is the base year.

Sources

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.
Inflation
Real figures deflate by CPI-U annual averages (BLS, all items, US city average).
Employment
14,120 employed in this occupation in the metro (BLS estimate; excludes the self-employed).
Occupation
SOC 13-1071, Human Resources Specialists. Mapped to our taxonomy as human-resources-specialists.

Percentiles are reported exactly as released and are never interpolated between published values. We take no payment from employers, recruiters or anyone else for how any figure is presented.