Computer Hardware Engineers Salary: Durham-Chapel Hill, NC vs San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA
Computer Hardware Engineers earn a median of $175,110 in Durham-Chapel Hill, NC and $209,860 in San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA. That is a nominal gap of $34,750 (-16.6%), with San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA paying more before any cost-of-living adjustment.
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey, May 2025 estimates. Cost-of-living adjustment uses BEA Regional Price Parities, most recent release.
The story behind the numbers
On raw wages, San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA pays $34,750 more per year than Durham-Chapel Hill, NC for computer hardware engineers, a gap of +16.6%.
After adjusting for cost of living, San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA still comes out ahead, with roughly $10,584 of extra purchasing power (+5.6% real gap). Local prices do not reverse the nominal advantage.
Full breakdown by location
Detailed wage, employment, and cost-of-living figures for computer hardware engineers in each location. Click through to the full local salary page for percentiles, outlook, and peer areas.
Durham-Chapel Hill, NC
- Median salary
- $175,110
- Mean salary
- $185,400
- Employment
- 430
- Location quotient
- 2.56
- Jobs per 1,000
- 1.3
- COL-adjusted median
- $179,467
- Regional Price Parity
- 97.6%
Exact metro RPP match.
Full Computer Hardware Engineers page for Durham-Chapel Hill, NC →
San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA
- Median salary
- $209,860
- Mean salary
- $208,700
- Employment
- 7,940
- Location quotient
- 14.19
- Jobs per 1,000
- 7.0
- COL-adjusted median
- $190,051
- Regional Price Parity
- 110.4%
Exact metro RPP match.
Full Computer Hardware Engineers page for San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA →
Related pages
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Common questions about this comparison
What does the cost-of-living adjustment actually do? +
It divides each location's nominal median wage by its Regional Price Parity (RPP), which measures how local prices compare to the national average (100 = national). A wage of $100,000 in an area with RPP 120 has the same purchasing power as roughly $83,000 nationally.
Why would the nominal and adjusted winners disagree? +
High-cost metros often pay higher salaries, but not by enough to fully offset the higher cost of housing, goods, and services. When that happens, the location with the lower nominal wage actually offers more real purchasing power.
What is a location quotient? +
The location quotient measures how concentrated an occupation is in a given area versus the national average. A value of 2.0 means the occupation is twice as common there as nationally. It is a signal of what a metro specializes in.