Average Salary

• According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the mean annual wage for a computer systems analyst in the United States as of May 2009 was $80,430, or an hourly mean wage of $38.67. The lowest 10 percent of those employed in this field earned $45,390 or less, while the highest 10 percent earned $118,440 or higher.
  
  

Industry

• Programmer analysts can be employed by any company or organization that uses computer technology, opening the doors for jobs in many industries. The highest-paying industry for this field is drug and druggists' sundries merchant wholesalers, with an average salary of $97,940, followed by computer and peripheral equipment manufacturing with an average salary of $94,930. Computer systems and design and related services is the industry with the highest level of employment for programmer analysts, and offers an average salary of $85,460. Management of companies and enterprises and insurance carriers are two other popular industries, with salary averages of $79,290 and $77,010 respectively.
  
  

Location

• Because any organization takes the local cost of living and demand into account when offering a salary to a programmer analyst, wages differ from state to state. The Bureau of Labor Statistics names Virginia as the top-paying state for programmer analysts with an annual mean salary of $92,300, followed by Rhode Island with an annual mean salary of $90,140. New Jersey, Massachusetts and Maryland follow with salaries ranging from $89,270 to $87,750.
  
  

Experience

• The more experience a programmer analyst has, the higher his salary tends to be. According to PayScale, the salary range for a programmer analyst with less than a year of experience is between $40,041 and $54,329, while five to nine years of experience earns between $52,412 and $70,912. An analyst with over 10 years of experience can earn up to $77,240, while one with 20 years or more earns up to $82,268.