Computer Network Support Specialists

What the pay figures show
- Washington pays this job the most, at $101,750. Unusually, it stays on top. Tax does not overturn it. Nor do local prices — it is still first at $74,069 once levelled out. That is rarer than it sounds. For most jobs the leader changes.
- Washington leads for computer network support specialists at $101,750 and retains the position through both adjustments, finishing first at $74,069 in price-deflated terms. That robustness is the minority case: across the largest occupations, state income tax reorders the leader roughly a third of the time and price level does so more often still. Where the nominal leader survives both, the wage premium is large enough to absorb the state's own tax and price levels.
Compare this career across states
Choose your filing status and local taxes, compare pay, and keep a shortlist.Compare wage and personal-pay outcomes by state, with selected resident local taxes and saved career choices.
Pay by state · May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
National median
$76,220
People doing it
146,190
Highest paid
$101,750
WA
Best off, really
$74,069
WA, after tax and prices
Lowest tenth
$47,120
Highest tenth
$127,780
Lowest, really
$42,892
WV
States with data
48
National average
$81,870
mean, not median
Prices where it goes furthest
108.56%
WA, against a national 100
Where this job actually pays best
- Where you do this job matters enormously. The best state pays roughly twice what the worst does. Prices alone cannot explain a gap that size. Level everything out and the range still runs $42,892 to $74,069.
- Roughly 146,190 people hold this job nationally, earning $76,220 in the middle. A solid, ordinary-sized job.
- Some states are missing here. There are figures for 48 jurisdictions, averaging $76,220 in the middle. A blank means nobody published a number, not that the job pays nothing there. Washington leads the published set.
- Geographic dispersion in computer network support specialists is unusually wide: the top state's median is approximately double the bottom's, a spread that price differentials cannot account for. The real-terms range, after tax and price deflation, still runs $42,892 to $74,069 — so the variation reflects genuine differences in local labor markets rather than a nominal illusion.
- 146,190 are employed nationally in computer network support specialists, placing it well inside the reported range without approaching the highest-headcount occupations.
- Coverage for computer network support specialists runs to 48 jurisdictions, short of the full set. The omitted states are suppressed at source; treat the spread above as the range across reported states rather than across the country.
Pay band: Computer Network Support Specialists
The national median for this job
| Lowest tenth earn under | $47,120 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $76,220 |
| Top tenth earn over | $127,780 |
| This salary | $76,220 |
Positions between the published tenth, quarter, half, three-quarter and ninetieth points are estimated by straight line.
Where these numbers come from
| BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), May 2025 estimates, time-series bulk download (oe.data.0.Current) | as of 2025-05-01 |
|---|
Steps in Computer Network Support Specialists
The national median for this job
| Lowest tenth | $47,120 |
|---|---|
| Middle | $76,220 |
| Top tenth | $127,780 |
The five points BLS publishes. Nothing between them is invented.
Computer Network Support Specialists, state by state
The national median for this job
| Lowest | West Virginia · $46,840 |
|---|---|
| Highest | Washington · $101,750 |
| Spread | $54,910 |
One dot per state that publishes this job. A missing state means suppressed data, not zero pay.
Best paid, and best off
The national median for this job
| Texas pays | $66,780 |
|---|---|
| Worth, after local prices | $68,721 |
Median pay against the same pay once BEA price parities are applied.
Every state, three ways
Sorted by what the money is actually worth. "Kept" is take-home for a single filer after federal, FICA and state income tax. "Really worth" divides that by the state's own price level, so a dollar in each row buys the same thing. Tap a state to put your own salary into it. States BLS does not publish for this job are absent — that means no published figure, not no work.
| State | Median pay | Kept after tax | Really worth |
|---|---|---|---|
| WA | $101,750 | $80,411 | $74,069 |
| NV | $85,790 | $69,183 | $71,338 |
| MD | $96,680 | $72,616 | $69,846 |
| OK | $78,740 | $61,181 | $69,298 |
| TN | $77,640 | $63,450 | $68,583 |
| AK | $86,110 | $69,408 | $68,238 |
| ND | $73,550 | $60,397 | $68,190 |
| WI | $81,010 | $62,466 | $67,098 |
| SC | $76,790 | $60,076 | $64,475 |
| RI | $82,970 | $64,508 | $63,610 |
| GA | $79,180 | $61,181 | $63,269 |
| CO | $82,750 | $64,112 | $63,238 |
| PA | $78,310 | $61,517 | $63,094 |
| IN | $73,100 | $58,129 | $63,057 |
| MO | $72,780 | $57,547 | $62,714 |
| OH | $70,080 | $56,920 | $61,997 |
| MA | $88,650 | $67,083 | $61,977 |
| DC | $91,370 | $68,311 | $61,650 |
| NJ | $87,440 | $66,964 | $61,501 |
| CT | $81,890 | $62,686 | $60,455 |
| FL | $75,740 | $62,113 | $60,040 |
| MN | $76,000 | $58,651 | $59,595 |
| VT | $72,400 | $57,095 | $59,084 |
| IA | $64,600 | $52,243 | $58,854 |
| VA | $76,760 | $59,178 | $58,738 |
| ME | $72,990 | $56,572 | $58,263 |
| NE | $65,450 | $52,495 | $58,085 |
| MS | $63,410 | $50,686 | $58,064 |
| HI | $83,620 | $62,745 | $57,771 |
| NM | $64,550 | $52,178 | $57,728 |
| TX | $66,780 | $55,810 | $57,432 |
| WY | $61,780 | $51,820 | $57,041 |
| NH | $72,330 | $59,714 | $56,684 |
| MI | $65,900 | $52,581 | $55,828 |
| AR | $59,460 | $48,215 | $55,734 |
| NY | $77,540 | $59,789 | $55,553 |
| AZ | $68,880 | $55,968 | $55,356 |
| ID | $63,340 | $50,570 | $55,313 |
| AL | $61,890 | $49,241 | $54,731 |
| MT | $61,150 | $49,197 | $54,515 |
| CA | $79,190 | $61,268 | $54,421 |
| IL | $68,530 | $53,793 | $54,416 |
| LA | $58,680 | $47,955 | $54,282 |
| KS | $60,060 | $47,375 | $52,660 |
| SD | $53,650 | $45,288 | $51,408 |
| OR | $68,900 | $51,823 | $49,486 |
| DE | $60,580 | $48,061 | $48,422 |
| WV | $46,840 | $38,505 | $42,892 |
Sources and assumptions
- These are middle-of-the-range figures for this job, not what a new starter is offered. Half the people doing this job earn under $76,220 nationally, half over. Your own experience and employer will move you well away from that midpoint in either direction.
- The take-home numbers here use the simplest possible household: one filer for this job, no children, no pension contributions, standard deduction. Real life usually reduces the tax bill below this. City and school-district income taxes are left out, and in Ohio or Pennsylvania that is a real omission. The best after-tax state here is Washington, at $80,411.
- One price figure per state stands behind the real-terms numbers for this job. Inside any state, a big city costs far more than a small town, so this is a fair way to compare states with each other and a poor way to price a specific move. The wage figures and the price figures are also from different years. At the bottom of the range sits West Virginia, on $42,892.
- All wage figures for computer network support specialists are medians rather than entry or offer rates; the national median is $76,220. Within-state dispersion typically exceeds between-state dispersion in this data, so an individual's expected wage is determined more by experience, sector and employer than by the state comparisons presented here.
- Retained-pay figures for computer network support specialists model a single filer taking the standard deduction with no dependants and no pre-tax deferrals — deliberately the simplest household, so the comparison across states isolates geography rather than personal circumstances. Local income taxes are outside the model; Ohio, Pennsylvania and Maryland residents should expect a meaningfully lower figure than $80,411, which leads in Washington.
- Real-terms results for computer network support specialists rest on statewide regional price parities, which average over intra-state variation that is itself larger than much of the interstate variation. They support comparison between states and not the pricing of an individual relocation; West Virginia anchors the distribution at $42,892. Wage and price series are published on separate cycles and therefore carry different reference periods.