Bothell supports far more work than its suburban image suggests.
The city has 34,235 workplace jobs for 52,010 residents. Professional services, education, manufacturing, construction and real estate, and health care each provide more than 3,000 jobs.
No single sector owns the story. Bothell functions as an employment center spanning classrooms, laboratories, factories, offices, and construction sites.
Northshore School District is the largest reported employer, followed by a construction contractor and Seagen. The rest of the top ten includes medical devices, higher education, telecom, biologics, and transportation.
The ten largest employers account for 39% of city employment, so a campus expansion—or a large closure—can materially change local commuting, commercial demand, and tax receipts.
Only 10% of observed resident job destinations are inside Bothell. Seattle draws 29%, Redmond 14%, Bellevue 12%, and Kirkland 8%; separately, 33% of workers report usually working from home.
That mismatch means Bothell is both a job destination and an origin for regional commuters. Transportation links matter in both directions throughout the day.
66% of households are estimated to be families. University of Washington Bothell and Cascadia College add a postsecondary population that is not visible in the public-school count.
University of Washington Bothell and Cascadia College bring commuters, renters, and daytime customers into Bothell with needs unlike a conventional workforce. Student and staff counts are the next useful measure.
Bothell’s population rose 8% from 2021–2026; its workplace job count rose 4% from 2018–2023. The source periods differ because the two series are released on different schedules.
Growth on both sides of Bothell’s workday can support a fuller local economy, provided new homes and transportation keep workers within reach of the 34,235 jobs already located there.
The typical household estimate is 2.5 people. 66% are estimated to be family households, while 26% are estimated to be people living alone.
±0.1 people at 90% confidence
±1.0 years at 90% confidence
±3 points at 90% confidence
Among residents age 25 and older. ±3 points at 90% confidence
Estimated share of all Bothell residents. Each percentage uses the city’s total population as its denominator.
0% published estimate: Hmong, Mongolian, Okinawan, Other East Asian, Burmese, Malaysian, Mien, Singaporean, Other Southeast Asian, Bhutanese, Sikh, Other South Asian, Afghan, Kazakh, Uzbek, Other Central Asian, Other Asian, specified. Zero is not proof that no residents identify with that group.
Professional Services (partial technology proxy) accounts for 15% of jobs located in Bothell. The city’s job base changed +35% between 2010 and 2023.
Workplace jobs inside the city—not the industries of residents who commute elsewhere.
Jobs located in Bothell · Current or recent profile · 2024. The stated employer vintage is within the current two-year publication window.
The school district is the largest employer, while construction, biotech, medical devices, higher education, telecommunications, and advanced manufacturing all appear in the top ten. Together these employers account for 39% of city employment—large enough that their expansions and contractions can reshape Bothell quickly.
City of Bothell Annual Comprehensive Financial Report ↗. Headcounts change faster than Census employment totals.
65% of occupied homes are estimated to be owner-occupied and 35% rented. The firmer current signal is construction intent: 262 homes were authorized in 2025, versus a recent pace of about 216 per year.
Owner estimates from the 2020–2024 American Community Survey—not listings, recorded sales, or appraisals. The final Census band is open-ended: $2 million and above.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau ACS 5-year tables B25075–B25078. Values cover owner-occupied homes only and do not measure current asking prices or recent purchase prices.
This describes the existing stock. It does not imply that one building type is preferable.
±4 points at 90% confidence
Spending 30% or more on selected owner costs. ±3 points at 90% confidence
Permit authorizations—not construction starts or completed homes.
One building can contain one home or many housing units.
Permit activity: U.S. Census Bureau Building Permits Survey, final annual estimate for 2025. Housing units authorized are not starts or completions.
Current transit schedules include 173 stops and 7,632 weekday stop departures inside Bothell. The 2020–2024 ACS separately estimates how workers usually commuted; it does not count every transit trip or describe today's schedule.
Scheduled stop departures in the current covered-feed snapshot—not riders.
Matched inside city limits; nearby cross-border stops are separate.
29% of observed resident job destinations in 2023 LODES.
Share of observed resident job destinations located in the same city in 2023 LODES.
Top observed workplace destinations. 10% work inside Bothell.
The strongest outside connection is Seattle. Employer or corridor changes there can alter everyday life in Bothell, even when nothing changes inside the city boundary.
Citywide ACS 2020–2024 estimates describe workers’ usual commute—not every trip made today.
Share of workers usually driving alone. ±3 points at 90% confidence
Share of workers usually working from home. ±3 points at 90% confidence
Usual commute mode—not all transit trips. ±1 points at 90% confidence
Share of workers with a one-way commute of at least 45 minutes. ±3 points at 90% confidence
For someone choosing a home in Bothell, the practical test is the trip to Seattle, the leading outside workplace destination in the published flows. These citywide shares cannot show whether that trip works from a particular address.
Work destinations are selected from observed resident job flows. These are broad, reviewed planning ranges from representative parts of Bothell—not live-traffic or door-to-door predictions.
Seattle is a LODES-selected resident workplace destination for Bothell, representing 26% of matched resident jobs from this city.
Highway-dominant corridor: distance converted with a reviewed 1.25x circuity factor and an assumed 45 km/h peak-effective / 70 km/h off-peak effective speed, then widened and rounded to a broad band. The morning inbound peak is shown; the evening outbound return is assumed to fall within the same broad band.
Redmond is a LODES-selected resident workplace destination for Bothell, representing 12% of matched resident jobs from this city.
Local arterial-dominant corridor: distance converted with a reviewed 1.40x circuity factor and an assumed 28 km/h peak-effective / 42 km/h off-peak effective speed, then widened and rounded to a broad band. The morning inbound peak is shown; the evening outbound return is assumed to fall within the same broad band.
Bellevue is a LODES-selected resident workplace destination for Bothell, representing 11% of matched resident jobs from this city.
Local arterial-dominant corridor: distance converted with a reviewed 1.40x circuity factor and an assumed 28 km/h peak-effective / 42 km/h off-peak effective speed, then widened and rounded to a broad band. The morning inbound peak is shown; the evening outbound return is assumed to fall within the same broad band.
Bothell is a LODES-selected resident workplace destination for Bothell, representing 9% of matched resident jobs from this city.
Local arterial-dominant corridor: distance converted with a reviewed 1.40x circuity factor and an assumed 28 km/h peak-effective / 42 km/h off-peak effective speed, then widened and rounded to a broad band. The morning inbound peak is shown; the evening outbound return is assumed to fall within the same broad band.
Planning estimate; actual time varies by departure time, route, traffic, weather, incidents, and closures.
Estimates are derived from reviewed origin/destination coordinates using a documented distance-to-time heuristic (circuity factor and assumed effective speed by corridor type and period), then deliberately widened and rounded to a broad band. No live routing or traffic API was called.
Estimates reviewed 2026-09-10. Starting point: selected representative area.
Public schools, libraries, pharmacies, and listed everyday places show part of the local inventory inside Bothell; taxable sales show the scale and direction of local commercial activity. Residents also use places across city lines, so a boundary count is not the same as access.
Care, errands, food, fitness, and personal services gathered into one browsable directory.
Counts reflect current directory records associated with the city, not a complete business census or a measure of access. Large categories show a sample.
Sources: U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), snapshot 2026-08-13; Overture Maps Foundation, release 2026-08-19.0; U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (NPPES NPI Registry), snapshot 2026-09-09.
Floor area shows the scale of the physical branches. Physical circulation is 2024 checkouts—not visits, unique users, or digital borrowing—and people routinely use libraries across city lines.
All matched branches must report floor area before a city total is shown.
Annual branch activity; not limited to city residents. All matched branches must report before a city total is shown.
Source: Washington State Library public-library statistics, 2024. System-wide visits, digital circulation, and program attendance cannot be assigned honestly to one branch, so they are not folded into these city totals.
Institution counts and enrollment will remain separate. A school can serve students from outside the city, and residents may attend a school across the boundary or elsewhere in their district.
None in the current OSPI city-boundary match.
Public-school names and levels come from OSPI. Private schools, complete IPEDS college coverage, enrollment by level, and graduate destinations are active additions; absence here should not yet be read as “none.”
The sales total does not point strongly toward either a major regional shopping role or an unusually small local retail base.
Higher than 51% of 82 tracked cities.
Nominal retail-sales change; inflation can account for some or all of an increase.
Sales reported by businesses classified in retail trade.
Includes taxable activity outside retail trade.
Retailing industries’ share of all taxable sales.
Median retail sales per resident across cities with comparable data.
Bothell voters elect the council, which hires a professional city manager to run administration. The mayor is selected from the council, so executive oversight works through the council rather than a separately elected chief executive.
The elected council hires and oversees the city manager.
Generally selected from the council—not a separately elected executive.
Current directory entries; vacancies or updates can make this differ from authorized seats.
Code city under Washington law.
Regular meeting schedule listed in the current municipal directory:
Schedules change and special meetings are separate. Check the city site for the live agenda, staff reports, public-comment rules, and video.
Regular municipal offices generally return in 2027. Special measures can appear earlier, and charter provisions can differ.
The next data step is city-specific turnout, contested-seat share, ballot measures, and campaign money. Until those are normalized, Metroscope links the official record instead of guessing from partisan elections.
Structure, meetings, and current officials: Municipal Research and Services Center of Washington (MRSC), checked 2026-09-08. Election administration and certified results: the county election offices listed above. Confirm live agendas and officeholders at the source.
Population and jobs do not always move together. Reading both helps distinguish a growing employment center from a city whose households are increasingly tied to opportunities elsewhere.
8% more from 2021 to 2026
4% more from 2018 to 2023
Nominal taxable-sales change; not adjusted for inflation.