2026 Edition · An annual reference on what work pays

Project Management Specialists

San Diego-Chula Vista-Carlsbad, CA metropolitan area. Estimated employment 10,740.

Data released May 2025 BLS OEWS · SOC 13-1082
Fig. 1 — The wage rule

Where you sit in the distribution

Drag the marker, or type a figure
$117,460 · 50th
$69,66010th
$86,37025th
$117,46050th
$139,94075th
$171,40090th

That is the medianhalf of project management specialists in San Diego earn more.

Table 1 — Adjusted

$117,460 in San Diego buys what $105,000 buys across the country as a whole.

San Diego's regional price parity is 111.9 — 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.

Fig. 2 — The ladder

What comes next

Median offered base pay by seniority for Project Management Specialists in San Diego, classified from job titles on visa filings.

Mid
$91,894
Senior
$157,909
Lead
$190,000
Table 2 — Nearby metros

The same job, elsewhere in California

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

Metro areaMedianAdjustedRPPvs. San Diego
San Jose$135,120$122,400110.4+16.6%
San Francisco$135,040$116,800115.6+11.3%
Sacramento$124,350$116,600106.7+11.0%
Hanford$118,380$116,500101.6+11.0%
San Diego This page$117,460$105,000111.9
Napa$109,060$96,900112.6−7.7%
San Luis Obispo$108,730$100,100108.6−4.6%
Los Angeles$108,310$95,400113.6−9.2%

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

Fig. 3 — Five-year trend

Nominal against real

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

90k100k110k120k 20212022202320242025
Nominal, as published Real, in 2025 dollars US$ thousands

Published pay rose 18.2% over the five years to 2025. Adjusted for inflation it is roughly flat — project management specialists in San Diego earn about what they earned in 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.
Career ladder
Seniority classified from job titles on the same visa filings; levels shown only with five or more filings each and a strictly rising progression.
Inflation
Real figures deflate by CPI-U annual averages (BLS, all items, US city average).
Employment
10,740 employed in this occupation in the metro (BLS estimate; excludes the self-employed).
Occupation
SOC 13-1082, Project Management Specialists. Mapped to our taxonomy as project-management-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.