{"schema_version": 1, "id": "college-station-bryan-tx-msa/information-technology/2026-10", "product": "Labor Market Pulse", "metro": {"geography_id": 142, "label": "College Station-Bryan, TX MSA", "slug": "college-station-bryan-tx-msa"}, "focus_area": {"key": "information_technology", "slug": "information-technology", "label": "Information Technology"}, "period": "2026-10", "public_after": "2026-10-01", "frozen_at": "2026-11-03T03:05:03.875044+00:00", "headline": "Brazos County IT wages outpace the state as talent pool tightens.", "headline_summary": "Brazos County wages grew 6.0% year-over-year against Texas's 4.5% average, while metro unemployment fell to 3.5% and local Cybersecurity Analyst pay climbed even as Help Desk pay declined.", "key_indicators": [{"label": "Metro unemployment rate", "value": "3.5%", "context": "NSA, Sept. 2026 \u2014 among lowest in Texas"}, {"label": "Brazos County wage growth", "value": "6.0%", "context": "YoY through Q3, vs 4.5% Texas average"}, {"label": "Metro labor pool shrinkage", "value": "-1,000", "context": "Unemployed fell from 6,500 to 5,500 since June"}, {"label": "Texas tech job supply gap", "value": "32,238", "context": "CompTIA-projected net new TX tech jobs this year"}], "takeaways": [{"headline": "Brazos County wage growth is outrunning the state.", "body": "County wages rose 6.0% year-over-year through Q3 against Texas's 4.5% average, a gap that is consistent with a metro labor pool shrinking faster than demand. Compensation planning that benchmarks against statewide averages risks understating true local pay pressure for scarce technical talent."}, {"headline": "Support and security pay are moving in opposite directions.", "body": "Help Desk advertised pay is down moderately locally while Cybersecurity Analyst and Systems Administrator pay both trend up \u2014 a signal that employers are reallocating compensation budgets toward specialized, harder-to-fill roles. Expect continued downward pressure on entry-level support pay even as overall metro labor demand stays tight."}, {"headline": "Local labor tightness strengthens the case for outsourcing commodity IT work.", "body": "A 3.5% unemployment rate alongside Texas's projected tech job surplus of 32,238 positions this year suggests internal hiring for routine infrastructure and support functions will stay difficult and costly. MSP engagements or offshore support centers may offer more predictable cost structures than competing for scarce local administrative talent."}, {"headline": "Network Engineer pay is lagging the national market.", "body": "Metro advertised pay for Network Engineer sits roughly $3,400 below the national median and shows no upward movement, even as Systems Administrator and Cybersecurity Analyst pay climb locally. Flat local demand for this role may reflect enterprise reliance on managed network services, a pattern that can coexist with steady underlying skill value."}], "local_conditions": "College Station-Bryan's 3.5% not-seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate in September ranks among the lowest in Texas, and the labor pool has tightened further as metro unemployment fell from 6,500 to 5,500 since June, consistent with the broader statewide pattern of employers growing output without adding headcount amid constrained labor supply. Brazos County's 6.0% year-over-year wage growth through Q3 \u2014 well above the state's 4.5% figure \u2014 appears to reflect sustained demand against a shallow local talent pool, a dynamic distinct from a broad-based cost-of-living adjustment.", "implications": "Tight local labor supply combined with wage growth running ahead of the state average raises the cost of defending headcount for infrastructure and support functions, particularly as Cybersecurity Analyst and Systems Administrator pay both trend upward locally while Help Desk pay softens \u2014 a split that rewards specialization and penalizes commodity support roles. Texas's projected 32,238 net new tech jobs against constrained supply, paired with national data showing 87% of tech leaders paying premiums for specialized skills, suggests build-vs-buy decisions increasingly favor outsourcing routine support and infrastructure operations while reserving direct hires for security and cloud-native roles. Organizations should evaluate whether current Systems Administrator and Help Desk staffing models can shift lower-cost or outsourced capacity into commodity support while redirecting retained headcount toward specialized infrastructure and security work.", "looking_ahead": [{"category": "Early indicator", "body": "Watch whether Brazos County's 6.0% wage growth rate persists into Q4 reporting or reflects a temporary spike tied to seasonal university-driven hiring swings. A sustained gap over the state average would justify revisiting local pay ranges for infrastructure and security roles outside the standard annual cycle."}, {"category": "Emerging pressure point", "body": "Texas's AI governance law, effective since January, requires audits of any hiring tool that screens, ranks, or monitors candidates \u2014 a compliance review that touches IT leadership directly given ownership of HR tech stacks. Expect increased internal demand for IT involvement in vendor and system audits over the next two months."}, {"category": "Worth watching", "body": "Statewide WARN filings are down 35% year-over-year, suggesting limited displaced-talent inflow to the local candidate pool from layoffs elsewhere in Texas. If that holds, hiring managers should not expect layoff-driven relief from current support and administration role shortages."}, {"category": "Potential inflection point", "body": "Academic-calendar effects on local employment typically intensify as Texas A&M's spring semester hiring ramps up in January. Monitor whether seasonal labor force swings tighten competition for part-time or contract IT support staff serving the university system."}], "roles": [{"role": "Data Scientist", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 122240.25, "metro_p50": 152940.0, "metro_p75": 164368.5, "metro_trend_direction": "stable", "metro_trend_magnitude": "stable", "national_p50": 145881.0, "national_trend_direction": "stable", "national_trend_magnitude": "stable"}, {"role": "Systems Administrator", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 76932.0, "metro_p50": 97137.8, "metro_p75": 106202.0, "metro_trend_direction": "up", "metro_trend_magnitude": "moderate", "national_p50": 102503.0, "national_trend_direction": "up", "national_trend_magnitude": "moderate"}, {"role": "Network Engineer", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 69880.75, "metro_p50": 112363.0, "metro_p75": 129924.0, "metro_trend_direction": "stable", "metro_trend_magnitude": "stable", "national_p50": 115757.0, "national_trend_direction": "up", "national_trend_magnitude": "moderate"}, {"role": "Software Engineer", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 119600.0, "metro_p50": 154030.0, "metro_p75": 171669.5, "metro_trend_direction": "stable", "metro_trend_magnitude": "stable", "national_p50": 154403.0, "national_trend_direction": "stable", "national_trend_magnitude": "stable"}, {"role": "Help Desk/IT Support Specialist", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 44810.75, "metro_p50": 52704.8, "metro_p75": 60665.5, "metro_trend_direction": "down", "metro_trend_magnitude": "moderate", "national_p50": 53129.0, "national_trend_direction": "down", "national_trend_magnitude": "moderate"}, {"role": "Cybersecurity Analyst", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 88000.0, "metro_p50": 105814.6, "metro_p75": 125425.0, "metro_trend_direction": "up", "metro_trend_magnitude": "moderate", "national_p50": 107327.0, "national_trend_direction": "up", "national_trend_magnitude": "moderate"}, {"role": "IT Project Manager", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 79455.0, "metro_p50": 113189.2, "metro_p75": 125030.0, "metro_trend_direction": "stable", "metro_trend_magnitude": "stable", "national_p50": 118149.8, "national_trend_direction": "stable", "national_trend_magnitude": "stable"}], "industry_snapshot": [], "citations": [{"source_name": "Texas Workforce Commission", "source_url": null, "statement": "College Station-Bryan MSA registered 3.5% NSA unemployment in September 2026"}, {"source_name": "KBTX", "source_url": null, "statement": "Metro unemployment fell from 6,500 to 5,500 since June 2026"}, {"source_name": "Texas Workforce Commission / Dallas Fed", "source_url": null, "statement": "Brazos County wages rose 6.0% year-over-year through Q3 2025"}, {"source_name": "CompTIA", "source_url": null, "statement": "CompTIA projects 32,238 net new tech jobs in Texas this year"}, {"source_name": "Texas Legislature", "source_url": null, "statement": "Texas Responsible AI Governance Act took effect January 1, 2026"}, {"source_name": "Texas Workforce Commission", "source_url": null, "statement": "Texas WARN filings down 35% year-over-year through October"}], "methodology": "Advertised pay from active employer job postings, not survey data. WageScape's median is calibrated to correct for spurious low-value postings: distribution analysis shows roughly the lowest 10% of raw values are erroneous entries, so the reported median is the 60th percentile of raw advertised pay.", "edition_label": "November 2026", "files": {"html": "college-station-bryan-tx-msa/information-technology/2026-10.html", "pdf": "college-station-bryan-tx-msa/information-technology/2026-10.pdf"}, "published_at": "2026-11-03T08:20:15.026346+00:00", "report_html_url": "https://reports.wagescape.com/archive/v1/editions/college-station-bryan-tx-msa/information-technology/2026-10.html", "report_pdf_url": "https://reports.wagescape.com/archive/v1/editions/college-station-bryan-tx-msa/information-technology/2026-10.pdf"}