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Labor Market Pulse
Burlington-South Burlington, VT Metro Edition
Focus: IT
Burlington IT pay splits: security and cloud up, infrastructure down.
2.3%
Chittenden County unemployment
Tight despite 1.8% YoY employment decline
$130,412
Cybersecurity Analyst pay (metro)
Up significantly, nearing $106,790 national figure
$94,411
Systems Administrator pay (metro)
Down vs $101,168 national, up trend
$1,521
Chittenden avg weekly wage
Up 3.4% YoY, ranks 121st nationally
This Month's Takeaways
Cybersecurity pay is pulling ahead of the national benchmark.
Metro Cybersecurity Analyst pay climbed to $130,412, up significantly and now tracking close to the $106,790 national median rather than trailing it. Local employers appear to be bidding directly against national remote employers for this skill set, not just regional peers.
Systems Administrator and Network Engineer roles show compensation drift.
Metro Systems Administrator pay fell to $94,411 while the national figure rose to $101,168, and Network Engineer pay stayed flat locally at $87,961 against a national climb to $114,400. The gap is consistent with Vermont's projected -0.6% decline in Professional/Technical Services employment and suggests these roles are being deprioritized in local budgets.
Tight labor supply doesn't guarantee hiring pressure everywhere.
Chittenden County unemployment at 2.3% coexists with a 1.8% year-over-year employment decline, meaning the labor shortage is partly a shrinking labor pool, not surging demand. IT leaders filling commodity roles may find fewer applicants even though overall hiring activity is soft — a case for weighing contract staffing over permanent hires for support functions.
Software Engineer pay surge may reflect a shrinking local talent pool.
Metro Software Engineer pay rose significantly to $133,349, nearly matching the $153,652 national median and outpacing most other local IT roles this month. Combined with Vermont's declining labor force, this looks less like demand growth and more like employers paying up to retain engineers who could otherwise work remotely for higher-paying coastal employers.
Local Labor Conditions
Chittenden County's unemployment rate held at a historically tight 2.3% in September even as Q1 2026 employment fell 1.8% year-over-year, placing the county among the worst-performing large U.S. labor markets despite near-full employment. Housing scarcity and a shrinking labor force — Vermont lost nearly 9,768 workers statewide through May — are compounding employer difficulty filling specialized technical roles even as overall job counts soften.
Leadership & Talent Implications
Shrinking headcount alongside sub-3% unemployment signals a market where employers aren't failing to hire for lack of demand — they're constrained by labor supply, which changes the calculus on build-vs-buy for infrastructure and support functions. Cybersecurity Analyst pay rose sharply locally (up to $130,412, nearly surpassing the national median) while Systems Administrator and Network Engineer pay softened, suggesting Burlington employers are concentrating scarce compensation budget on security and cloud rather than traditional on-prem roles. Consider reviewing whether flat or declining advertised pay for infrastructure roles reflects genuine demand compression or a widening gap that risks losing remaining on-prem talent to remote cloud-focused employers.
