Williamson County, TX

County Profile

672,688 residents. Safety, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for Williamson County, TX.

Several figures AreaProfile publishes are measured by county and nowhere finer — death rates by intent among them. On this page those describe the geography they are printed on, which is not true of the city and ZIP pages that inherit them.

77out of 100
Area Score
Top 6% of 1,225 published profiles

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
OpportunityTop 11% of 1,255 counties78
SchoolsTop 30% of 973 counties67
GrowthTop 27% of 1,226 counties62
Housing affordability857th of 1,255 counties85
Climate673rd of 1,254 counties67
Physical resilienceTop 11% of 1,255 counties87
AccessTop 46% of 1,255 counties83
Economic stabilityTop 2% of 1,255 counties97
The quick read

Williamson County ranks in the top 11% of published profiles for employment opportunity, with unemployment at 4.2% and median household income of $111,340.

Residential permitting has slowed: 4,338 units authorized over the past twelve months, 35% below the prior year.

Natural-hazard exposure is lower than in most comparable published profiles, placing Williamson County in the top 11% for physical resilience.

At a glance

Population
672,688
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$111,340
Top 3% nationally
Density
603/sq mi
1115.8 sq mi of land
Median age
37.3
2024 ACS 5-Year
County
Williamson County
Texas
Metro area
Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos, TX
Nearest major airport
AUS
32 mi · Austin-Bergstrom Intl
Median home value
$447,000
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 4.2% is lower than 50% of the 1,255 measured US locations.

Employment grew 0.3% over the past year, to 418,023 employed residents.

48% of adults hold a four-year degree, higher than 96% of measured US locations.

Household income is higher than at least 97% of measured US locations.

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$1,581$111,340Top 3%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$723$53,505Top 5%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate6.4%Bottom 5%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute30.0 minTop 24%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher48.4%Top 4%2024 ACS 5-Year
Employment418,023Top 6%June 2026
Employment change (3 years)7.4%Top 2%June 2026
Employment change (year over year)0.3%Top 26%June 2026
Labor force436,193Top 6%June 2026
Labor force participation70.7%Top 2%2024 ACS 5-Year
Unemployment change (year over year)0.7%Top 18%June 2026
Unemployment rate4.2%Top 50%June 2026
Unemployment rate
2021/062022/032022/122023/092024/062025/032025/102026/064.52.9
Monthly unemployment rate from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, most recent value 4.2% in June 2026. A break in the line is a month the Bureau of Labor Statistics did not publish for this area — it is left empty rather than estimated.
Median household income, successive ACS releases
2021202220232024111k95k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $111,340 in the 2024 ACS 5-Year. Consecutive releases share four years of sample, so AreaProfile shows them as a record of successive estimates and does not compute a year-over-year change from them.
Largest occupations — Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos, TX
OccupationPeople employedMedian annual wage
General and Operations Managers42,190$117,850
Fast Food and Counter Workers35,000$29,310
Customer Service Representatives32,690$43,720
Software Developers31,960$134,120
Retail Salespersons29,660$33,860
Stockers and Order Fillers27,430$37,720

Occupational employment and wages are published for metropolitan areas rather than for individual cities or ZIP areas, so these describe the wider labor market this location sits in. 2025 OEWS, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

43% of students met the state standard in mathematics and 49% in reading, across the schools here that reported results.

There are 14.5 students for every full-time teacher, fewer than in most measured places.

Public schools
167
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
14.5
across all schools here
Math proficiency
42.9%
Top 45% in Texas
Reading proficiency
49.0%
Top 13% in Texas
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
ROUND ROCK H SROUND ROCK ISD3,82418.0
WESTWOOD H SROUND ROCK ISD2,85817.9
CEDAR RIDGE H SROUND ROCK ISD2,71316.9
STONY POINT H SROUND ROCK ISD2,50817.1
VISTA RIDGE H SLEANDER ISD2,48015.4
HUTTO H SHUTTO ISD2,31316.2
ROUSE H SLEANDER ISD2,26016.0
EAST VIEW H SGEORGETOWN ISD2,20615.8
LIBERTY HILL H SLIBERTY HILL ISD2,15615.7
CEDAR PARK H SLEANDER ISD2,15515.4
LEANDER H SLEANDER ISD2,13114.4
GEORGETOWN H SGEORGETOWN ISD2,05915.6

28.9% of students here are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. That describes the circumstances families arrive with rather than how the schools perform, which is why AreaProfile shows it and does not score it.

Public schools only, from the NCES Common Core of Data. Schools are placed by ZIP code, so this is which schools are in this place rather than which one a particular address is zoned for — district boundaries do not follow municipal ones, and enrollment zones change. Fully virtual schools are excluded: they enroll students from across the state while reporting one administrative address, and counting them here would describe a school population this place does not have. The assessment covers grades 3 through 8, so a high school shows no proficiency figure — a dash in those columns means the test was not given at that school, not that it performed badly. Proficiency is measured against Texas’s own standard, so it compares cleanly within the state and only broadly against other states; AreaProfile therefore ranks it within state. The directory is current, while the proficiency figures are from the last school year with national coverage before the pandemic interrupted testing.

Housing & affordability

How it’s calculated →

Median rent of $1,796 takes 19% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 4.0 times median household income here, above the historic benchmark of about three times income.

Rent as a share of income
19.4%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
4.0×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$1,796
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$447,000
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income4.01Top 20%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate66.4%Bottom 18%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±281262,644Top 3%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$17$1,796Top 3%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$3,593$447,000Top 6%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income19.4%Top 26%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate3.9%Bottom 2%2024 ACS 5-Year

Both affordability measures come from the same ACS release as the income they are compared with, so the comparison is like for like. They describe housing cost against local earnings and are not a cost-of-living index — transport, groceries, healthcare, insurance and taxes are not included, and a place can look affordable here and still be expensive to live in for reasons this does not capture.

Growth & development

How it’s calculated →
Development Momentum
62/ 100
Top 27% of 1,226 published city profiles
Permitting is decreasing — 4 consecutive years, measured from 2020 to 2025.

An AreaProfile calculation combining permit volume per resident, its direction over one and three years, population change and employment growth. Permit volume alone is not the measure.

Population has grown 18% since 2020, reaching 727,480 in 2024.

Permit activity has fallen for 4 consecutive years.

Population is still rising, but more slowly than in the preceding year.

New construction is predominantly single-family: only 9% of permitted units are in buildings of five or more homes.

At 6.4 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is above the median for measured US locations.

Units permitted
4,338
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
6.4
Top 20% nationally
Year over year
−35%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
9.5%
units in 5+ unit buildings
Population, annual estimates
20202021202220232024727k616k
Census Population Estimates Program, July 1 of each year. These annual estimates are designed for year-over-year comparison, unlike the ACS five-year figure shown as this profile's population.
Housing units permitted per year
20202021202220232024202515k5k
Annual totals from the Census Building Permits Survey. Permitting in 2025 was lower than 2020 (−35%).

Weather & climate

6 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 97°F and January a low of 42°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 36.3 inches.

30°50°70°90°110°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station AUSTIN-CAMP MABRY, 24.5 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND5.0"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
Annual precipitation36.3"1991-2020 Normals
Annual snowfall0.2"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low42°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high97°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months61991-2020 Normals
Seasonal temperature swing34°F1991-2020 Normals

Climate figures are thirty-year normals, not current conditions. They describe what a typical year looks like rather than what the weather is doing today.

Physical risk

87 / 100
Physical resilience

The hazards accounting for most of this area's expected annual loss are hail, wildfire and drought.

HailElevated
WildfireModerate
DroughtModerate

Low or minimal exposure: winter weather, cold wave, tornado, inland flooding, heat wave, lightning, ice storm, hurricane, strong wind, earthquake, landslide.

Hazard ratings are AreaProfile calculations derived from the FEMA National Risk Index v1.20.0 (December 2025). FEMA National Risk Index county record. FEMA does not endorse this presentation. Higher physical resilience means lower exposure.

These are deaths, not offences. AreaProfile does not publish reported crime, and this is not a substitute for it — it says nothing about burglary, theft or assault.

Williamson County records 3.7 homicide deaths per 100,000 residents a year, near the middle of counties measured. The CDC does not publish this below county level.

Firearm deaths of all intents run at 12.3 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 8.7 per 100,000 residents in Williamson County.

Homicide
3.7
per 100,000 residents
Firearm deaths, all intents
12.3
per 100,000 residents
Drug overdose
8.7
per 100,000 residents
Suicide
15.9
per 100,000 residents

Firearm deaths count every intent together, and nationally the majority are suicides rather than homicides. The two columns overlap and should not be added.

Age-adjusted rates from provisional death certificate records, published by the CDC for Williamson County as a whole — these rates are not published below county level. A county can hold both a dense city centre and a suburb whose experience of it is nothing alike, so this describes the county around Williamson County rather than Williamson County itself. That is why AreaProfile shows these figures and does not put them in the Area Score. Where fewer than ten deaths were recorded the count is suppressed at source, and a rate built on single figures moves sharply between releases. What this measure has that reported crime does not: a death certificate is filed whether or not the local police agency submitted a return that year, so the figures stay comparable between places and over time.

What this profile does not cover

Three things people look for are missing from every AreaProfile page, and each is missing for a reason rather than by oversight. The Area Score is calculated without them and the weighting is documented on the methodology page.

Reported crime
The FBI’s Crime Data Explorer is the only source for reported offences with national coverage and a published method, and it requires an API key AreaProfile does not hold. Arrest counts, news volume and commercial “safety scores” are not substituted in the meantime. What is published above under Safety is a different measurement — deaths rather than offences, from death certificates rather than police returns — and it covers no property crime at all.
Taxes
No tax dataset has met the source admission test for coverage, transparent methodology and update cadence. Nothing here is individualized tax advice.
Full cost of living
No public source publishes one with national coverage and a documented method. Housing affordability above is computed from published rent, price and income, and excludes transport, groceries, healthcare, insurance and taxes — commuting cost in particular tends to offset suburban housing savings.

Access

3 major airports lie within 100 miles, the nearest 32 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Austin-Bergstrom IntlAUS32 mi12,250 ft
Tstc WacoCNW75 mi8,600 ft
San Antonio IntlSAT93 mi8,505 ft

Airport identity, position and runway data come from the FAA. “Major airport” is an AreaProfile classification — a public-use civil airport with a paved runway of at least 8,000 feet — not an FAA hub designation. Distances are straight-line, not driving distance.

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Area Score
77
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Data & methodology

Used forSourceSource periodUpdated
AccessFederal Aviation Administration
Airports (NASR) — Aeronautical Data Delivery Service
NASR current cycle28-day NASR cycle
Physical riskFederal Emergency Management Agency
National Risk Index
National Risk Index December 2025 (v1.20.0)Periodic dataset versions (v1.20.0 current)
ClimateNOAA National Centers for Environmental Information
U.S. Climate Normals 1991–2020 (Monthly)
1991-2020 NormalsEvery ten years (next release follows the 2001–2030 period)
JobsU.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Local Area Unemployment Statistics
June 2026Monthly
DemographicsU.S. Census Bureau
Population Estimates Program
July 1, 2024 estimateAnnual (vintage released each spring)
DevelopmentU.S. Census Bureau
Building Permits Survey
12 months ending July 2026Monthly, roughly three weeks after the reference month
Demographics, Housing, Income, JobsU.S. Census Bureau
American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates (Table-Based Summary File)
2024 ACS 5-YearAnnual (5-year estimates released each December)
safetyU.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics
Provisional county-level mortality by intent
April, 2025 to March, 2026Quarterly, with a rolling twelve-month window alongside complete calendar years
schoolsU.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics
Common Core of Data and EDFacts assessments
2019-20 school year; 2024-25 school yearDirectory annually; assessment results as EDFacts releases them

Profile recalculated August 30, 2026. Recalculation is not the same as new source data — each figure above shows the period its source actually covers. Read the full methodology or browse every source.