San Antonio is Texas’ worst major city for starting a career, study finds

With commencement season in full swing, freshly degreed college graduates are leaving the classroom for the workforce.

However, don’t bet that the majority of Alamo City college grads are staying put to start a job. San Antonio ranks as Texas’ worst major city for starting a career in a new WalletHub study.

WalletHub ranked San Antonio 80th on its list of best cities for starting a career. That puts it behind Austin (No. 4), Dallas (No. 36), Fort Worth (No. 49) and Houston (No. 66).

“The best cities for starting a career not only have a lot of job opportunities but also provide substantial income growth potential and satisfying work conditions,” WalletHub analyst Chip Lupo said in a statement. “It’s also important to consider factors such as how fun a city is to live in or how good of a place it is for raising a family, to ensure life satisfaction outside your career.”‘

WalletHub ranked 182 U.S. cities — the nation’s 150 most-populated plus the two largest in each state — using Professional Opportunities and Quality of Life as categories.

Researchers measured Professional Opportunities using 13 metrics, including the availability of entry-level jobs, monthly average salary adjusted for cost of living and the share of workers in poverty.

Meanwhile, they tracked Quality of Life using metrics such as average commute times, the share of the population between ages 24 and 34 and the share of adults 25 and older with at least a bachelor’s degree.

San Antonio landed at No. 91 in Professional Opportunities but got a slight bump when measuring Quality of Life, where it ranked No. 70. Despite the Alamo City’s apparent lack of early-career opportunities, it beat out smaller Texas cities in WalletHub’s overall rankings — Lubbock, El Paso and Corpus Christi among them.

The five best U.S. cities for starting a career, according to WalletHub, are Atlanta, Orlando, Tampa, Austin and Miami, in respective order. When adjusted for the cost of living, Houston had the fifth-best starting salary for people starting a career.

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This article appears in Apr 30 – May 13, 2025.