Laura Pepper

8 December 2021

Where’s the best place to live as a DBA? | Infographic

DBAs: Thinking of moving overseas? We’ve done the research for you!

Perhaps because so few of us have been able to travel recently, or perhaps because wanderlust is just good fun, we’ve been wondering as to where the best place to live is as a DBA. And not just where pays the most, or where the opportunities are, but where would truly be the best place to live day-to-day.

Some of the findings might surprise you! If you live in any of the places mentioned, we’d love to hear about your experience of living there in a comment below. That’s if you’re not too busy packing your bags…

Finding #1: APAC scores a lot of points.

The Global Liveability Index from The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) examines 140 cities every two years and assigns a livability score based on more than 30 factors. Interestingly, there has been a big change in the top 10 this time vs. 2019, likely due to big shifts in the world caused by the global pandemic and the areas most affected by it. APAC (Asia-Pacific region) features heavily this time around.

The top ten cities in the Liveability Index in 2021 are:

1. Auckland, New Zealand
2. Osaka, Japan,
3. Adelaide, Australia
4. Wellington, New Zealand
5. Tokyo, Japan
6. Perth, Australia
7. Zurich, Switzerland
8. Geneva, Switzerland
9. Melbourne, Australia
10. Brisbane, Australia

Vienna in Austria has fallen from #1 in the 2019 index to #12 and Copenhagen in Denmark and Calgary, Vancouver and Toronto in Canada have also moved out of the top spots.

Finding #2: The best places in Europe may surprise you!

If you’d rather move (or stay) in Europe, the European Commission’s Report on the Quality of life in European Cities, 2020 is based on a survey of the residents of 83 European cities. It comes with the caveat that not all European cities are represented – so if you feel that your city has been left out, do let us and your fellow DBAs know in a comment below!

Respondents answer questions on access to services and amenities, environmental quality, economic well-being, and overall satisfaction, along with other topics. As a result, the top ten cities in Europe, ranked by quality of life, are:

1. Copenhagen, Denmark
2. Stockholm, Sweden
3. Zurich, Switzerland
4. Gdańsk, Poland
5. Braga, Portugal
6. Oslo, Norway
7. Hamburg, Germany
8. Rennes, France
9. Cardiff, UK
10. Tyneside, UK

It’s interesting to note that underdogs like Cardiff and Tyneside in the UK have high scores, as they don’t often feature in the top 10 places to live lists – but maybe they should!

Finding #3: The best US states to live in?

We know that many of our blog readers are based in the USA and, rather than moving overseas, may just fancy a change of state.

The US News & World Report publishes its Best States list each year, which is a national survey of 70,000 people. The rankings are based on eight categories: healthcare; education, economy; infrastructure; opportunity; fiscal stability; crime; and the natural environment.

The list also uses sources like the US Census Bureau, the Council for Community and Economic Research, Medicaid, and the Tax Policy Center to curate the findings.

Here’s the list for 2021:

1. Washington
2. Minnesota
3. Utah
4. New Hampshire
5. Idaho
6. Nebraska
7. Virginia
8. Wisconsin
9. Massachusetts
10. Florida

The usual suspects like New York, California, and Hawaii don’t make the list and feature in the mid-twenties; could it be that costs are too high and quality of life is compromised?

Back to the main question… Where’s the best place to live as a DBA?

All of these lists are great to answer the question: where’s the best place to live, but what about “where’s the best place to live… as a DBA?” The US Bureau of Labor Statistics provides that information by providing DBA highest average salary information:

1. New Jersey
2. Washington
3. District of Columbia
4. California
5. Massachusetts
6. Virginia
7. New York
8. Connecticut
9. Minnesota
10. Texas

And the states where the highest number of DBA roles are located:

1. California
2. Texas
3. New York
4. Virginia
5. Florida
6. Pennsylvania
7. Illinois
8. North Carolina
9. New Jersey
10. Massachusetts

And a combination of these lists means that the best places to be a DBA in the US looks like…

1. The State of Washington for the lifestyle and the salary

And

2. The States of Virginia and Massachusetts for the whole deal of lifestyle, salary, and opportunities.

Download the infographic

Over to you…

Across the world, we’ve seen many organizations move to flexible working in the last two years and the option to live where we want to and work remotely is becoming more common.

The migration to the cloud is also happening quickly. Monitoring tools like SQL Monitor help you to monitor servers and instances, whether on-premises or in the cloud, or a hybrid of both. That information can be shared with distributed IT teams productively and efficiently.

What do you think DBAs? We’d love to hear about what it’s like where you live, and if you could move anywhere right now, where would it be?