Where are the BEST and WORST states to land a data job?

I scraped and analyzed 6,512 real data job postings to find out where data analysts actually have the best shot at landing a role in 2025.

Here's what I found.

The States You Should Probably Avoid

Let me start with the bad news.

If you're living in one of these seven states, finding a data job is going to be rough:

Bottom 7 States for Data Jobs:

• Alaska

• Maine

• West Virginia

• Delaware

• Wyoming

• Vermont

• North Dakota (the worst)

Why are these states at the bottom?

North Dakota and Wyoming have few people and depend on farming, oil, and mining. West Virginia leans on coal and has fewer big cities. Delaware sits right between Philly and New York, so most people just move to those cities for better jobs.

Okay, so where ARE the jobs?

Let's look at the top states by job numbers.

Top States for Data Jobs (by total count):

1. California (the most)

2. Texas

3. New York

4. Washington

5. Virginia

6. Florida

7. Illinois

California tops the list with 8.7% of all data jobs. It’s the tech capital with giants like Google and Netflix. Texas follows at 7.7% thanks to its growing tech scene and big cities. New York takes third, powered by finance, fintech, and Wall Street.

Big States = More Chances? WRONG!

So should you pack your bags and move?

California and Texas have way more people than other states. So yeah, they have more jobs. But does that mean it's easier to get hired there?

Not really.

Raw job counts don't tell you your actual chances of landing a role.

Think about it.

Would you rather compete for 500 jobs with 5 million other people? Or 5 jobs with just 10 competitors?

Obviously the second one.

So I normalized the data by population. Instead of just counting total jobs, I calculated how many data jobs exist per 1 million people in each state.

And when I did that, the rankings completely changed.

The New Top 7 (per capita):

1. District of Columbia (135 jobs per million people)

2. Washington (49)

3. Virginia (35)

4. New York (21)

5. Massachusetts (21)

6. Rhode Island (20)

7. Georgia (18)

District of Columbia? Yep. Technically not a state, but it crushed everyone. Why? Because it's the heart of Washington D.C. Tiny population. Tons of government jobs.

Now, notice who's NOT in the top 5 anymore: California and Texas.

They have huge populations, so when you factor that in, they're not actually the best places to find a data job.

The bottom states stayed the same. North Dakota still dead last with just 3 jobs per million people.

This One Chart Tells You Everything

I created a slope chart that shows how every state's ranking changed when we went from raw totals to per-capita numbers. This visual really brings it all together

The left side shows rankings by total job count. The right side shows rankings when adjusted for population.

The lines tell the story.

Blue lines going up are those states that got better when we factored in population.

Orange lines going down are those states that dropped because they just have big populations but not actually great job markets.

Look at California and Texas. Big drops.

Find your state. What do you think?

What It Means for Your Job Search

If you're trying to land a data analyst job, location matters more than you think.

Living in California or Texas doesn't automatically give you better odds just because there are more jobs there. You're also competing with way more people.

But if you're near Washington D.C., Virginia, or Massachusetts? Your odds just got way better.

And if you're stuck in North Dakota, Wyoming, or Vermont? Remote jobs are your best friend.

I didn’t actually do this analysis…

I say I did this analysis…well I had a lot of help from my students The Accelerator.

Every quarter or so, we run an internship program where they help me crunch some numbers for an upcoming video we are doing. They get real data analyst experience they could put on their resumes and LinkedIn profiles. And we get cool numbers to share. Win-win.

Big shout out to this round’s interns: Moiz Noorali, Ani Mayilyan, Mukta Pandey, Amanda Ward, & Zitong Wang. Check out their profiles and if you or your company is hiring, consider them! They’re great!

If you want that kind of hands-on internship experience (and be featured in our content), learn more about The Accelerator: click this link.