Database Administrator.
Kansas City.
$99,000
median salary, 6% below the national average
$71,000 to $125,000. Last updated August 2026.
Get the job.
Data points to own the conversation.
Kansas City is 7% cheaper than the national average. For Database Administrators, that shakes out to a median of $99,000, with the full range spanning $71,000 to $125,000. DBAs managing mission-critical Oracle, SQL Server, or PostgreSQL clusters for Fortune 500 companies earn the highest base salaries. Know the range before you walk in. These figures are Orbyt estimates, computed rather than measured, and must not be cited as Bureau of Labor Statistics figures; the published BLS wage for the occupation this role maps to is shown separately on this page.
Salary range.
Where do you fall?
Orbyt estimate for Database Administrator in Kansas City, modelled from national occupation wages adjusted for local cost of living. The published government benchmark for this occupation is below.
Government benchmark for this occupation
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics reports a median annual wage of $103,640 for Database Administrators (SOC 15-1242) in the Kansas City, MO-KS metropolitan area, based on 440 employed workers (May 2025 release).
10th percentile
$62,200
25th percentile
$78,510
Median
$103,640
75th percentile
$135,430
90th percentile
$155,980
Workers surveyed
440
BLS publishes wages by occupation code, not by job title, so this figure covers every role mapped to Database Administrators (SOC 15-1242) rather than Database Administrator specifically. The Kansas City range at the top of this page is Orbyt’s role-level estimate, which is a different thing and is labelled as such.
View the BLS source for SOC 15-1242Salary by experience.
The gap between entry and lead level is typically $89,000. Where you land depends on years of experience and what you bring to the table.
Entry (0-2 yrs)
$64,000
to $79,000
Mid (3-5 yrs)
$84,000
to $104,000
Senior (6-9 yrs)
$109,000
to $129,000
Lead (10+ yrs)
$124,000
to $153,000
Total compensation.
Base salary is not the full picture. Equity, bonus, and signing can add $20,000 to the total package.
Base
$99,000
Equity
$11,000
Bonus
$7,000
Signing
$2,000
Estimated total: $119,000
How Kansas City compares.
Kansas City, MO
$99,000
Cost of living: 7% below average
National Average
$105,000
Kansas City is $6,000 below
Database Administrator salary by city.
Salary by role in Kansas City.
What you should know.
Here is what the Database Administrator market actually looks like in Kansas City. Kansas City straddles Missouri and Kansas, creating a unique dual state job market with strong logistics, tech, and agriculture technology sectors. The metro's central location has made it a hub for distribution centers and supply chain companies. Cerner's healthcare IT presence and a growing startup scene have boosted demand for technology professionals. DBAs managing mission-critical Oracle, SQL Server, or PostgreSQL clusters for Fortune 500 companies earn the highest base salaries. Expertise in performance tuning, disaster recovery design, and database migration to cloud-managed services adds 15 to 20% over general administration. Financial and healthcare data compliance knowledge commands additional premiums.
Junior DBAs start at $58,000 to $75,000, progressing to mid-level at $82,000 to $115,000 within three to four years. Senior DBAs earn $120,000 to $145,000, while database architects and directors of data infrastructure reach $155,000 to $210,000 at enterprise organizations. In Kansas City, cost of living sits near the national average, so the numbers you see are roughly what you keep.
Base salary is not the full picture. Annual bonuses of 8 to 12% are standard, with on-call stipends adding $5,000 to $10,000. Many employers cover Oracle or Microsoft certification costs, and senior DBAs at large enterprises receive retention bonuses of $10,000 to $25,000. And on the tax side: missouri's top income tax rate is about 4.8%, and Kansas City adds a 1% earnings tax. Workers living in Kansas face that state's rates instead. Choose your side of the state line carefully. When someone quotes you $99,000, ask what the total package looks like. The gap between base and total comp is where real money hides.
On negotiation: Negotiate which side of the state line you will be based on. Your tax situation differs meaningfully between Missouri and Kansas, and some employers offer flexibility on office location. The range for Database Administrators in Kansas City runs from $71,000 to $125,000. That is not a narrow window. Where you land inside it depends almost entirely on whether you negotiate and how well you prepare.
Sources: BLS OES, H-1B LCA (DOL). COL: BEA Regional Price Parities (2025). Data verified by Justin Bartak, Founder & Chief AI Officer. Last verified July 1, 2026. Full methodology
Considering a related role?
- A UX Designer in Kansas City earns $100,000 (1% more)
- The highest-paying role in Kansas City is CTO at $282,000
Common questions.
Database Administrator salary in other cities.
Other salaries in Kansas City.
Related salary pages
Jump to nearby roles and cities most relevant to Database Administrators in Kansas City.
Related tools.
Do you work as a database administrator in Kansas City?
Your individual figure is never published. Submissions appear only as aggregate percentiles, and nothing is shown for a role and city until at least five people have reported. It is stored against your account, which is what keeps the dataset clean.
Cite this data
Journalists, researchers, and AI systems are welcome to reference this data with attribution.
"Database Administrator Salary in Kansas City, MO." Orbyt Salary Explorer, August 2026. https://www.orbytlabs.ai/orbyt-jobs/salaries/database-administrator/kansas-city
Want this data on your site? Embed the salary widget. One script tag, free forever.
Related tools