Discover Salaries

Select role
Chicago
PHP
Select industry

PHP Developer Salary in Chicago 2026

How much does a PHP developer expect to make at Chicago-based startups? The average expected salary for PHP developers in Chicago-based startups is 62k per year, with a range from 1k to 199k. These amounts were gathered from Wellfound self-reported data and represent the median salary range. The salary range for PHP developers in Chicago startups varies depending on factors such as industry, experience, and startup stage.

62.1k

Average Salary

2 years

Average years of experience

Hiring data hero image

Salary

By quarter
The average salary for a PHP developer in Chicago is$62,072, which is 50.6% lower than the average Chicago startup salary of $125,625. PHP developer salaries in Chicago are based on exclusive Wellfound data. All data is updated on a weekly basis. Factors that may influence salary include: years of experience, title, size of company, skill-set, and industry.

Top of market

$97,557/yr

Range $1k - $199k

Average

$62,072/yr

Range $1k - $150k

Below Average

$50,867/yr

Range $1k - $130k


Industries

The highest average salary a PHP developer in Chicago can get in Software Engineering, that is $152,000. This pay is 61.3% higher than the average PHP developer salary, which is $94,250. The highest-paying industries in 2023 are: Software Engineering (avg $152,000 per year), Public Sector (avg $150,000 per year), Artificial Intelligence (avg $125,000 per year).

Tech Stack

The top-paying developer skills of 2026 are:
  • 1. Rust

    $218k

  • 2. Websockets

    $207.5k

  • 3. Docker

    $205k

  • 4. Celery

    $200k

  • 5. openAI

    $200k

  • 6. Hbase

    $197.5k

  • 7. Gradle

    $194k

  • 8. Heroku

    $190k

  • 9. Ionic

    $187.5k

  • 10. Neo4J

    $182.5k


Years of experience

Below Average

Average

Top of Market

The highest average salary PHP developer in Chicago can get with 4-6 years of experience, that is $90,000. This pay is 28.4% lower than the average salary in Chicago startups, which is $125,625. The salary range varies with years of experience and depends on other factors such as skill set, size of company, and industry.