Miami Compensation Benchmarks 2026
Miami does not pay one premium. Across 111 major occupations it runs -4.5% against national medians on average, but that average hides a spread of 13.6 points between the best-paid and worst-paid occupation groups in this metro.
Which means the shortcut most pay structures rely on, a single Miami geographic adjustment factor, is wrong in both directions at once: it underpays the roles this market values and overpays relative to market on the roles it does not.
Computed from BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, for Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, FL (CBSA 33100). 629 occupations carry metro-level data; 111 have Miami employment above 5,000 and are used here. Free to read, free to use, no account required.
Miami pay by occupation group
Median wage vs national · employment-weighted within group
→ Protective Service at +3.0% and Architecture & Engineering at -10.6%. Same metro, same month, 13.6 points apart.
Where Miami pays more
Largest premium vs national median
Where Miami pays less
Largest discount vs national median
The ten roles Miami employs most
Metro median vs national median · annualised at 2,080 hours
| Role | Miami | National | Gap | Jobs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Retail Salespersons | $34,320 | $35,422 | -3.1% | 91K |
| General and Operations Managers | $105,643 | $105,768 | -0.1% | 75K |
| Customer Service Representatives | $39,562 | $44,782 | -11.7% | 63K |
| Registered Nurses | $91,374 | $97,552 | -6.3% | 62K |
| Office Clerks, General | $44,741 | $45,011 | -0.6% | 61K |
| Cashiers | $30,243 | $32,885 | -8.0% | 56K |
| Laborers and Freight, Stock, and Material Movers, Hand | $38,584 | $40,248 | -4.1% | 49K |
| Stockers and Order Fillers | $36,109 | $37,336 | -3.3% | 45K |
| Janitors and Cleaners, Except Maids and Housekeeping Cleaners | $34,174 | $36,837 | -7.2% | 42K |
| Security Guards | $36,046 | $38,022 | -5.2% | 42K |
What named Miami employers file for the same job
US Department of Labor H-1B filings · FY2026 Q3 (decisions 1 Oct 2025 to 30 Jun 2026) · 4,630 certified Miami filings from 2,054 employers
Market data tells you the range; it never tells you who pays what. Employer wage filings do. Taking one role, Software Developers, and only employers with 12+ Miami filings in it, the same job in the same metro is filed anywhere from the 13th to the 79th percentile of the market range on this page:
| Employer | Filings | Median filed | vs Miami market |
|---|---|---|---|
| CITADEL SECURITIES AMERICAS SERVICES LLC | 14 | $175,000 | P79 |
| Citrix Systems, Inc. | 20 | $165,547 | P75 |
| Deloitte Consulting LLP | 12 | $157,273 | P69 |
| American Express Travel Related Services Company, Inc. | 24 | $154,854 | P67 |
| Modernizing Medicine, Inc. | 12 | $152,500 | P65 |
| MPG Operations LLC | 14 | $118,196 | P38 |
| Majestic IT Services Inc | 12 | $84,531 | P13 |
→ 66 percentile points between named employers, inside one role, inside one metro. A candidate moving between two of these companies is not moving within a band; they are changing markets.
Median filed by role · where it sits on the Miami OEWS curve
What this data is, and is not. These are base salaries stated on Labor Condition Applications for visa-sponsored roles, floored by prevailing-wage rules: offered pay on a legal form, not a payroll extract, and base only, no bonus or equity. It shows how an employer positions pay for a role. Source: US Department of Labor, Office of Foreign Labor Certification disclosure files, FY2026 Q3 (decisions 1 Oct 2025 to 30 Jun 2026). Employers keyed on federal tax ID; role medians computed only where an employer has 12 or more Miami filings in that occupation. Metro membership is by worksite county in the OMB delineation BLS uses for this metro.
Method, and one exclusion worth naming
Each Miami occupation is compared to its own national median from the same BLS survey vintage, so the comparison holds the job constant. Group figures are employment-weighted, meaning a group is driven by the roles Miami actually employs rather than by an unweighted average across job titles.
Tipped occupations are excluded. BLS reports cash wages for tipped roles, and most of the variation between metros comes from state tip-credit law rather than local pay levels. Florida sets its own tipped minimum above the federal floor but below full minimum wage, so tipped roles would sit between the two regimes and say more about statute than about Miami pay. Waiters, bartenders and similar roles are left out for that reason.
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, for Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, FL (CBSA 33100). Employer-reported wages from approximately 1.1 million surveyed establishments. Analysis by CompSignal; the underlying figures are BLS, the comparison and commentary are ours.
Run this on your own roles
Every tool below is free, needs no account, and uses the same BLS data as this analysis.
CompSignal is built by Falcon Incentives. Looking for Atlanta? The Atlanta edition is the companion to our 2026 Atlanta Area Compensation Association sponsorship.