Colorado Occupational Employment and Wages - 2025
The Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) program is a Federal-State cooperative program that provides estimates of employment and wages for over 800 non-military detailed occupations in 22 major occupational groups. Every year, the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment, in partnership with the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), collects and publishes occupation and wage data for the State of Colorado and for ten substate regions: seven Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) and three Balance of State (BOS) Areas.
Note: The publication of Colorado's OEWS 2025 estimates has been delayed by approximately six weeks due to a lapse in appropriations.
Statewide Highlights
Workers in the State of Colorado had a mean (average) hourly wage of $37.11 in 2025, about 10.64 percent above the US average of $33.54, according to the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment and the BLS. The statewide median hourly wage1 for all covered employment2 was $28.75 compared to the US median of $24.51.
Statewide Occupational Employment and Wages
The occupational groups with the most workers were office and administrative support (301,320 workers), sales and related (296,260), and food preparation and serving related occupations (269,820). These three groups accounted for about 30 percent of total covered employment. Management occupations had the highest average wage, while food preparation and serving related occupations had the lowest (see Table 1).
Regional Occupational Employment
The most common occupations statewide were fast food and counter workers (82,010), retail salespersons (76,660), and stockers and order fillers (55,520), and the first two were also among the top three occupations in most of the substate areas (see Table 2).
Regional Occupational Wages
The Boulder MSA had the highest overall average and median wages. The Eastern and Southern Colorado BOS Area had the lowest average wage and the Grand Junction MSA had the lowest median wage (see Table 3). Both Boulder and Denver had average and median wages that are higher than the statewide average and median (see Table 1).
Statewide Location Quotients (LQs)
A location quotient allows us to explore the occupational make-up of a state, MSA, or BOS Area by comparing the composition of jobs in an area relative to the national average. For example, an LQ of 2.0 indicates that an occupation accounts for twice the share of employment in an area than it does nationally.
Compared to the US, Colorado demonstrated a higher share of employment in architecture and engineering (LQ of 1.51), computer and mathematical (1.40), business and financial operations (1.36), life, physical, and social science (1.32), personal care and service (1.29), sales and related (1.19), community and social service (1.15), and construction and extraction occupations (1.19) and a lower share of employment in production (0.59), farming, fishing, and forestry (0.65), healthcare support (0.73), management (0.77), healthcare practitioners and technical (0.85), and transportation and material moving occupations (0.86). See Table 4 for detailed occupations with the highest LQs.
Regional Location Quotients (LQs)
The occupations with the highest concentrations of employment in each substate area were atmospheric and space scientists in the Boulder MSA (LQ of 50.38), media and communication equipment workers, all other in the Colorado Springs MSA (8.94), mining and geological engineers in the Denver-Aurora-Centennial MSA (8.31), conservation scientists in the Fort Collins MSA (23.08), service unit operators, oil and gas in the Grand Junction MSA (16.92) and in the Greeley MSA (32.31), plant and system operators, all other in the Pueblo MSA (10.46), wind turbine service technicians in the Eastern and Southern Colorado BOS Area (43.08), rock splitters, quarry in the Southwest Colorado BOS Area (18.65), and grounds maintenance workers, all other in the Northwest Colorado BOS Area (23.81). More location quotients are available under Excel Downloads on the Labor Market Information (LMI) Products and Publications page.
Spotlight on: Arts, Design, Entertainment, Sports, and Media Occupations
This occupational group is composed of art and design workers, entertainers and performers, sports and related workers, media and communication workers, and media and communication equipment workers. There were 41,090 workers employed in this occupational group in Colorado in 2025, with an average hourly wage of $41.79 and a median hourly wage of $31.64. Since 2015, employment has increased 6.4 percent, while the real average hourly wage has increased by 27.4 percent (average hourly wage of $32.81 in 2015 after adjustment using Employment Cost Index factors).
About the Colorado Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics Survey
In Colorado, 3,920 businesses were initially surveyed beginning in November of 2024 and 3,921 were initially surveyed beginning in May of 2025. After excluding establishments that were out of business or out of scope, a total of 82.4 percent of 7,326 businesses provided information on the job titles and wages of their employees. These data were combined with responses from the previous two years (a total of six semiannual surveys) to produce the May 2025 occupational estimates highlighted in this document.
OEWS data are available from BLS at BLS OEWS data, on the CDLE LMI website, and at Colorado LMI Gateway. Industry-specific data (NAICS Sector and 3- and 4-digit, Excel files) are available at BLS OEWS research estimates.
End Notes
1 The median wage (50th percentile wage) is the point at which one-half of workers make less than the amount and one-half make more.
2 Employment covered by state unemployment insurance laws or, for federal workers, covered by the Unemployment Compensation for Federal Employees program.
Technical Note
The OEWS survey is a semiannual survey measuring occupational employment and wage rates for wage and salary workers in nonfarm establishments in the United States. The OEWS data available from BLS include:
- cross-industry occupational employment and wage estimates for the nation and for over 580 areas, including states and the District of Columbia, MSAs, nonmetropolitan areas, and territories;
- national industry-specific estimates at the North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS) sector, 3-digit, most 4-digit, and selected 5- and 6-digit industry levels; and
- national estimates by ownership across all industries and for schools and hospitals.
OEWS data are available at BLS OEWS data.
OEWS estimates are constructed from a sample of about 1.1 million establishments. Each year, two semiannual panels of approximately 186,000 to 189,000 sampled establishments are contacted, one panel in May and the other in November. Responses are obtained by Internet or other electronic means, mail, email, telephone, or personal visit. The May 2025 estimates are based on responses from six semiannual panels collected over a 3-year period: May 2025, November 2024, May 2024, November 2023, May 2023, and November 2022. The unweighted sampled employment of 84.7 million across all six semiannual panels represents approximately 55 percent of total national employment. The overall national response rate for the six panels, based on the 50 states and the District of Columbia, is 66.2 percent based on establishments and 67.2 percent based on weighted sampled employment.
For more information about OEWS concepts and methodology, please see the BLS OEWS technical notes.
May 2025 OEWS data are available for most 2018 Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) detailed occupations. To improve data quality, the OEWS program has replaced some 2018 SOC detailed occupations with SOC broad occupations or OEWS-specific aggregations. Information about the SOC system is available at the BLS SOC website and information about the NAICS system is available at the BLS NAICS website.
New estimation methodology
The May 2025 estimates were produced by a model-based estimation method using three years of OEWS data (MB3). Under MB3, data provided by survey respondents are used to model occupational staffing patterns and wages for all unobserved establishments in the population, including establishments that were not sampled, sampled establishments that did not respond, and respondents that did not meet stability criteria. Technical information is available at OEWS May 2025 Survey Methods.
Substate area definitions
The May 2025 OEWS estimates use the metropolitan area definitions delineated in Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Bulletin 23-01. Nonmetropolitan area definitions are specific to the OEWS program and are set in consultation with the state workforce agencies. For more information, please see BLS OEWS area definitions.
Additional information
Answers to frequently asked questions about OEWS, including uses of OEWS data, are available at BLS OEWS FAQs.