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Labor Market Pulse
Dayton, OH Metro Edition
Focus: IT
Dayton's tight labor market hides a widening IT pay split.
3.0%
Dayton MSA unemployment rate
vs 4.1% national, 3.3% Ohio statewide
100 jobs/month avg
Dayton job growth pace, 2026
Down from 117/month in 2025, weakest since 2020
$111,269
Data Scientist advertised pay, metro
Down significantly vs $148,250 national, rising moderately
3,134 workers
Ohio WARN activity, trailing 90 days
18 notices, led by manufacturing (23 notices statewide)
This Month's Takeaways
Data Scientist pay is falling here while rising everywhere else.
Metro median of $111,269 trails the $148,250 national figure by a widening margin, with local pay moving down significantly even as national demand accelerates. This divergence suggests Dayton employers are either substituting contract analytics talent or losing specialized roles to Columbus and remote-first employers.
Network Engineer pay is the one role moving up sharply.
Metro median climbed to $106,443, a significant local gain outpacing even the national trend. Consistent with Columbus's data center expansion drawing infrastructure talent regionally, forcing Dayton employers to bid up pay to retain networking and infrastructure staff rather than lose them to a 20-minute commute shift.
IT Project Manager compensation looks like a structural pullback.
Metro median down significantly to $111,615 against a national figure rising moderately to $117,530 may reflect fewer standalone PM roles as organizations fold project oversight into senior technical positions. Reevaluate whether this role should be benchmarked against a shrinking local market or a stronger national one before the next req is posted.
Help Desk and Cybersecurity Analyst pay sit still — for now.
Both roles show stable metro and national trends, but CompTIA's 2026 data placing cybersecurity skill growth at 346% above national average suggests this calm is temporary. Flat advertised pay alongside surging demand signals is the kind of gap that typically closes fast once hiring managers start competing for the same candidates.
Local Labor Conditions
Dayton's 3.0% unemployment rate — among the tightest of any major metro nationally — sits against a regional job growth pace averaging just 100 jobs per month in 2026, the slowest since 2020, suggesting labor scarcity rather than hiring momentum is driving the tight reading. Manufacturing and construction firms report active hiring constrained by skilled-trades shortages, a dynamic increasingly bleeding into infrastructure and network roles that compete for the same technically-skilled labor pool.
Leadership & Talent Implications
Metro Data Scientist pay down significantly against a national figure moving up moderately signals Dayton employers losing pricing power for advanced analytics talent precisely as Columbus's data center boom — 1,100+ jobs added regionally since 2021 — pulls cloud and infrastructure specialists northward. IT Project Manager pay falling locally while rising nationally points toward either a cooling in project-based hiring or a quiet reclassification of project oversight into senior engineering roles, a pattern worth distinguishing before budgeting next cycle's headcount. Organizations should evaluate whether build-vs-buy tradeoffs for specialized cloud and data roles now favor regional contracting partners over direct hires, given Dayton's shrinking wage premium relative to Columbus-adjacent markets.
