Finance is one industry that is very strong across most American cities with many job options that pay extremely well compared to median salaries. Read more to find out about the cities with the largest job markets and the fastest growing job markets. Also explore the county by county data in the interactive map at the bottom, where you can explore the regional differences in job growth rates, raises, income, and number of people employed in companies in the financial sector.
Top 5 Cities by Total Number of People Employed in Finance
| City | Employed in Finance 2015 |
| NYC (5 boroughs) | 324854 |
| Chicago (Cook County) | 146597 |
| Los Angeles (LA County) | 133268 |
| Phoenix (Maricopa County) | 122541 |
| Dallas (Dallas County) | 117263 |
These cities generally align with the major financial areas that you typically think of for finance. NYC has Wall Street. Chicago has commodities and is the heart of trade for the center of the country. Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Dallas are corporate centers with many financial companies supporting. While these cities currently have the most jobs, they aren’t all growing. So these cities might have healthy financial sectors today, in the future other cities lower in the list may grow past them. Many of the cities in the top 5 such as Chicago and Los Angeles have seen substantial drops in financial sector employment over the past 10 years. Keep reading to find out where the up and coming cities are.
Top 5 with Growing Finance Sectors
Texas dominates the counties with the largest nominal increases in employment in the financial sector with 3 of the top 5 counties with job growth over the past 10 years. With greater job growth comes greater opportunity to move companies for increased pay and responsibilities that you might not be able to get in more stagnant markets.
| City | 10 Year Growth in Employment |
| Dallas (Dallas County, Texas) | 14740 |
| Phoenix (Maricopa County, Arizona) | 14671 |
| San Antonio (Bexar County, Texas) | 14558 |
| North Dallas Suburbs (Collin County, Texas) | 8265 |
| Des Moines (Dallas County, Iowa) | 7900 |
Top 10 Counties by Growth Rate
While Texas dominates the raw growth by number of jobs, the fastest growing counties by annual % job growth are spread all over the country in smaller cities. It may be good to launch your career in a smaller market that is growing fast. Sometimes it’s better to be a big fish in a small but growing pond than a big fish in a large shrinking pond.
| City | Annual Increase % (10 yr avg) |
| Des Moines (Dallas County, Iowa) | 10.08 |
| Denton (Denton County, Texas) | 8.71 |
| Birmingham (Shelby County, Alabama | 8.36 |
| Bloomington (McLean County, Illinois) | 5.2 |
| Columbia (Richland County, South Carolina) | 3.9 |
| North Dallas Suburbs (Collin County, Texas) | 3.3 |
| Austin (Travis County, Texas) | 2.95 |
| San Antonio (Bexar County, Texas) | 2.82 |
| Kansas City (Johnson County, Kansas) | 2.26 |
| Salt Lake City (Salt Lake County, Utah) | 1.93 |
Interactive map after the jump.
Finance Jobs Across America Statistics Map
- Number Employed in Finance 2015
- Employment Growth (10 yr total)
- Annual Income Growth (10 yr avg)
- Employment Growth % (10 yr avg)
- Average Income 2015
The source for this data is from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.