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The best cities to move to for a new job with a top-rated company

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@karly.valencia | Twenty20

San Francisco living is notoriously pricey, but residents there have unmatched access to work for some of the best companies in the country, according to one new report.

Glassdoor's latest 100 Best Places to Work ranking found that 20 top-rated companies are headquartered in the Bay area, making it the city with the most number of top-rated employers, according to employees who work for them.

The ranking takes into account more than 55 million employee reviews for more than 1 million companies on the jobs site. Employees are asked to review their overall satisfaction with their employer and CEO's leadership, as well as specific workplace components such as career opportunities, compensation and benefits, culture and values, senior management and work-life balance.

Four companies in the top 10 have headquarters in San Francisco: DocuSign, an e-signature technology company; Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which conducts research on behalf of the federal government; Intuitive Surgical, a health-care robotics manufacturer; and VIPKid, an online K-12 education platform.

Living among tech giants comes at a cost, though. According to Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data from May 2018, the metro area's average annual income is $72,400 per year. While this is a fair amount above the national average of $51,960, a whopping 91% of Bay Area residents say the cost of living there is somewhat or very high, according to a poll from data firm YouGov.

The other U.S. cities that are home to the most top-rated employers in the country are New York City with nine companies, Boston with eight and Los Angeles with five.

While top employers fall across many industries, including retail, health care, financial services, real estate and more, a majority are within the technology space. The concentration of top tech employers in these cities may be unsurprising given recent findings from the Brookings Institution that more than 90% of the country's growth in innovation jobs between 2005 and 2017 happened in just five cities: Boston, San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle and San Diego.

But a move to one of these hubs isn't the only way to land a job with a great company. Within the top 10 overall best places to work, according to Glassdoor reviews, the company that took the No. 5 spot, Sammons Financial, is based in West Des Moines, Iowa; No. 8 Ultimate Software is based in Weston, Florida; and No. 10 Southwest Airlines is based in Dallas.

Here's a breakdown of the cities with the most number of top-rated companies, along with the average income according to BLS data, and average monthly rent for an apartment unit from online apartment guide Rent Cafe.

San Francisco Bay Area, California

Number of top-rated companies with headquarters in the city: 20

  • DocuSign (No. 3)
  • Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (No. 6)
  • Intuitive Surgical (No. 7)
  • VIPKid (No. 9)
  • Google (No. 11)
  • LinkedIn (No. 12)
  • NVIDIA (No. 20)
  • Facebook (No. 23)
  • JUUL Labs, (No. 31)
  • SurveyMonkey (No. 33)
  • Salesforce (No. 34)
  • VMware (No. 36)
  • Adobe (No. 39)
  • Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants (No. 40)
  • Slack (No. 69)
  • Intuit (No. 70)
  • Cisco Systems (No. 77)
  • Gensler (No. 81)
  • Apple (No. 84)
  • Intel Corporation (No. 100)

Average income: $72,400 per year

Average rent: $3,703 per month

New York City, New York

Number of top-rated companies with headquarters in the city: 9

  • McKinsey & Company (No. 24)
  • Compass (No. 32)
  • Bristol-Myers Squibb (No. 38)
  • Johnson & Johnson (No. 71)
  • Noom (No. 75)
  • E*TRADE Financial (No. 78)
  • NYU Langone Health (No. 91)
  • PwC (No. 94)
  • AXA Advisors (No. 98)

Average income: $64,550 per year

Average rent in Manhattan: $4,336 per month

Average rent in Brooklyn: $2,956 per month

Boston, Massachusetts

Number of top-rated companies with headquarters in the city: 8

  • HubSpot (No. 1)
  • Bain & Company (No. 2)
  • Boston Consulting Group (No. 13)
  • MathWorks (No. 16)
  • Kronos Incorporated (No. 35)
  • Forrester (No. 54)
  • Massachusetts General Hospital (No. 72)
  • Fidelity Investments (No. 88)

Average income: $67,370 per year

Average rent: $3,505 per month

Los Angeles, California

Number of top-rated companies with headquarters in the city: 5

  • In-N-Out Burger (No. 4)
  • Trader Joe's (No. 14)
  • Irvine Company (No. 61)
  • UST Global (No. 76)
  • Smile Brands (No. 86)

Average income: $57,890 per year

Average rent: $2,556 per month

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