Best Cities, States and Pay for Medical Sales Job

Best Cities, States and Pay for Medical Sales Job
October 7, 2015
By Mark Terry, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff

Where are the best places to find medical rep sales jobs? MedReps.com released data today showing the cities with the most medical sales jobs and best paying medical sales jobs.

Top 25 Cities
Perhaps not surprisingly, the cities with the most medical sales jobs are major metropolitan cities, with San Francisco, Seattle, Boston, New York and Washington DC rounding out the top five. The reports points out that San Francisco has 1.85 jobs per candidate, the best job-to-candidate ratio, even though New York City has the most open medical sales jobs — but the Big Apple also has some of the most competition for those jobs.

The study also notes that although Dallas is a relatively small market, there are almost two job candidates for each job. The top five cities with the best job-per-candidate ratios are San Francisco, New York City, Boston, Seattle, and Washington DC.

Top 25 Cities For Medical Sales Jobs
(Not in order)
1. San Francisco
2. New York
3. Seattle
4. Boston
5. Washington DC
6. Los Angeles
7. Sacramento
8. Minneapolis
9. Dallas
10. San Antonio
11. Chicago
12. Detroit
13. Cleveland
14. Philadelphia
15. Baltimore
16. Boston
17. Raleigh
18. Phoenix
19. Denver
20. Houston
21. Indianapolis
22. Nashville
23. Atlanta
24. Orlando
25. Charlotte

Money, Money, Money
The study also provides a list of the average compensation for medical sales jobs. Phoenix tops the list with $178,407, followed by Los Angeles at $173,205 and Detroit for $165,553. According to the Medical Sales Salary Report for 2015, the average income among survey participants was $141,464 with an average base pay of $80,861.

None of these would even be remotely bad-paying jobs, with New York ($139,961), Raleigh ($139,000) and Baltimore ($137,762) at the bottom of the list. But without getting too tied into the dollar amounts, it might be worthwhile to consider the cost of living in some of those cities. Phoenix has a Composite Index Cost of Living of 100.7, which shows the cost of living as a percent of income spent on goods, including groceries, housing, utilities, transportation, health care and others. Los Angeles reports in at 136.4 and Detroit at 99.4.

The study indicates that the cost of living in New York City is 23.3 percent above the national average. Boston, however, has a cost of living that’s 18.4 percent above the national average. Chicago, however, has a cost of living that is 0.6 percent below the national average. San Francisco, however, will cost an arm and a leg, with the cost of living 50.5 percent above the national average.

In other words, it costs a lot more to live in Los Angeles, but Phoenix and Detroit are relative bargains. And although Phoenix has an average high temperature of 72 degrees in February, its annual high temperature in July is 106. Detroit, on the other hand, has an average high of 35 degrees in February and 83 degrees in July. Of course, the annual average snowfall in Detroit is 42.7 inches, not generally an issue in Phoenix or Los Angeles.

Alternately, although people may recoil at the idea of living in Detroit, the state of Michigan ranked number four as the most favorable state based on income—and Detroit has plenty of great suburbs. The state, according to the report, “allows for significant travel while still having a good concentration of hospitals, medical clinics, and healthcare facilities.”

The top five states for earning income as medical sales reps then? Georgia is number one, followed by New York, Texas, Michigan, and Florida.

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