City ProfileBoston · Massachusetts · US

Boston

Deep tech and life sciences make Boston structurally different from other top US markets. Proximity to MIT, Harvard, and a dense university cluster sustains a research-to-commercialization pipeline that shows up clearly in the hiring mix.

Postings · Sep 2026−44%3-mo momentum
4
postings
this month
12-Mo Trend · 3-mo rollingOct '25 → Sep '26
6.3333 low3-mo avg · 1625.6667 high
Rank · US
#11of 30 US cities
Remote-friendly · This month
50%−19 pts vs US
Share of US postings
1.4%4 of 372
3-Mo momentum
Falling−44% vs prior 3 mo
§ 00Hiring Volume

A consistent top-six US market with lower variance than coastal peers.

Annual totals for the last five years — every year shown is complete except 2026, hatched because it is still in progress.

Full yearPartial yearAll-time peak
All-time postings
10,274since 2011 · 186 months
+15% YoY2025 vs 2024
862
'22
350
'23
211
'24
242
'25
115
'26
All-time total
10,274186 months
↑ Best year
20161162
↓ Worst full year
2024211
Latest full year
2025+15% YoY
§ 01Compensation

Pays 8% under Seattle for senior eng — and 4% over Denver.

Median bands from the 37 Boston postings that disclosed USD pay across 2023–Present.

Senior eng · median · 2023–Present
USD167K
−8%vs Seattle+4%vs Denver
Range by seniority · 2023–Present
Junior— n=3
Mid— n=1
Senior$143k – $188k n=15
Staff+— n=9

Bar = p25 to p75 · tick on Senior = median. Junior & Mid & Staff+ shown hatched below the 10-sample floor.

Senior eng median · US peer cities · 2023–Present
Where Boston sits in the US distribution
CityMedianvs Boston
01
Seattle
$182k+8.7%
02
Washington DC
$180k+7.8%
03
Chicago
$171k+2.5%
04
Bostonyou are here
$167k—
05
Denver
$160k−4.2%

2023–Present disclosed pay only

§ 02Work Model

8 points more remote-friendly than the US baseline.

Trailing-12-month split, plus the yearly remote / hybrid / onsite mix all the way back.

Remote-friendly · Trailing 12 months
78%
+8 ptsvs US · 69%
Remote
13%
Hybrid
65%
Onsite-only
22%
Work-model mix · by year
Remote share is climbing back in '26
RemoteHybridOnsite
'11
70% rem.
'12
50% rem.
'13
51% rem.
'14
52% rem.
'15
32% rem.
'16
30% rem.
'17
23% rem.
'18
28% rem.
'19
41% rem.
'20
65% rem.
'21
85% rem.
'22
93% rem.
'23
87% rem.
'24
71% rem.
'25
75% rem.
'26
80% rem.
Trailing 12 months · Boston vs US
Boston78% remote-friendly
US average69% remote-friendly
§ 03City Signature

Deep tech and life sciences — not a consumer market.

Keywords counted across 178 Boston hiring posts. Posts frequently list multiple skills.

#01
Top SkillPython
95mentions↓ 23%
Mentions · Last 12 Months
OCT '2553% of postingsSEP '26
Leaderboardlast 12 mo
01Python−23%95
02TypeScript−0%88
03React−17%64
04Machine Learning+96%48
05UX/UI+30%47
06Amazon Web Services (AWS)+89%42
07Google Cloud−26%41
08Rust+11%28
09Go−44%25
10PostgreSQL−1%22
Movers · 12-month change
What’s moving
Trending↗
  • 01CI/CD+1334%
  • 02MongoDB+1203%
  • 03C+++421%
  • 04SQL+343%
Cooling↘
  • 01Playwright−76%
  • 02IoT−61%
  • 03Go−44%
  • 04Kubernetes−40%

85% of jobs include at least one technical skill · share of postings mentioning the skill (12 months through Sep 2026)

Role mix · Boston vs USShare of postings by role category, past 3 years
BostonUS baseline
Data Ml
over-indexed
22%
13%
+10 pts1.8×
Design
match
1%
3%
−1 pts0.5×
Engineering
match
61%
69%
−8 pts0.9×
Executive
match
3%
2%
+2 pts1.9×
Finance Accounting
match
0%
0%
−0 pts0.0×
Healthcare
match
0%
0%
−0 pts0.0×
Legal Compliance
match
0%
0%
−0 pts0.0×
Marketing
match
2%
3%
−1 pts0.6×
Operations
match
0%
1%
−1 pts0.4×
Other
match
2%
3%
−1 pts0.8×
Product
match
6%
4%
+2 pts1.4×
Sales
match
2%
3%
−1 pts0.7×