Executive Assistant Salary in Chicago, IL 2026,
$77,770 Median | BLS + Market Data

Chicago executive assistants earn a BLS median of $77,770/yr, or $37.39 an hour, across the Chicago-Naperville-Elgin metro, with a published band from $54,440 to $107,430. That is 1.5% above the US median for the occupation. BLS counts 10,620 executive secretaries and executive administrative assistants in the metro.

Yes — the metro runs 4.5% above the Illinois statewide figure, a wider gap than this occupation usually shows and a direct consequence of how many headquarters and senior executive roles sit in this region. Among peer metros Chicago sits below Seattle at $80,860, Dallas at $80,230, Charlotte at $79,900 and Philadelphia at $79,490, and above Houston at $74,850.

Financial services, large law firms and private capital, followed by headquarters executive suites. The common factor is not glamour but consequence: those roles handle confidential transaction material, board papers and executive calendars where an error is expensive, and the hours are genuinely demanding. Employers price for reliability and discretion rather than for administrative throughput, which is why the top of this band reaches $107,430 while general departmental administration sits near the bottom.

No. Illinois licenses nothing in this occupation and there is no required credential. Optional professional designations such as the certified administrative professional qualification exist and can help a candidate moving up from general administration, but they carry limited weight at the senior end, where hiring is done on track record, references and demonstrated judgement in confidential settings. What employers here actually test for is software fluency, calendar and travel complexity, and the ability to handle sensitive material.

It is a narrowing occupation with a well-paid core. The decline BLS projects is real, and it is concentrated in general administrative support that software has absorbed. What has not declined is demand for senior executive support at the top of large organisations, where the role has moved toward project coordination, board administration and gatekeeping. Assistants in this metro who have moved in that direction are in a strong position; those doing scheduling and document work that could be automated are the ones the projection describes.

A projected national decline of 1.6% alongside about 50,000 average annual openings looks contradictory and is not. Employment projections measure the size of the occupation; openings measure how many people leave it. This is a large occupation with an older-than-average workforce and considerable movement into adjacent roles, so replacement demand dwarfs the shrinkage. The roughly 1,150 openings a year pro-rated to this metro is therefore a real hiring figure, not a statistical artefact — but someone entering should understand they are entering a market that will be smaller in a decade.

From the 10th percentile at $54,440 to the 90th at $107,430 is close to double, in an occupation with a single title and no credential. That spread reflects a genuine split. At one end sits administrative support — scheduling, document handling, expenses — which software has made faster and cheaper and which employers increasingly share across teams. At the other sits senior executive support, which has absorbed responsibilities that used to belong to junior managers: board coordination, project tracking, stakeholder management, control of an executive's access. The second is not a more experienced version of the first; it is a different job.

Most occupations benefit from headquarters concentration through higher grades and larger budgets. Executive assistance benefits more directly: the number of well-paid roles is a function of how many senior executives are physically based in a region. Chicago has a disproportionate share of corporate headquarters, large law firm offices, and financial services principals, and each of those generates senior support roles that a branch office does not. That is the clearest explanation for the 4.5% premium this metro shows over the Illinois figure — an unusually wide gap for an administrative occupation.