{"schema_version": 1, "id": "kingsport-bristol-bristol-tn-va-msa/information-technology/2026-10", "product": "Labor Market Pulse", "metro": {"geography_id": 196, "label": "Kingsport-Bristol-Bristol, TN-VA MSA", "slug": "kingsport-bristol-bristol-tn-va-msa"}, "focus_area": {"key": "information_technology", "slug": "information-technology", "label": "Information Technology"}, "period": "2026-10", "public_after": "2026-10-01", "frozen_at": "2026-11-03T03:17:55.324314+00:00", "headline": "Kingsport IT pay splits: engineers gain, support and security lag.", "headline_summary": "Metro Software Engineer pay climbed to $149,094 while Help Desk pay fell to $44,000 and Cybersecurity Analyst pay held nearly 17% below the $107,327 national median.", "key_indicators": [{"label": "Sullivan County unemployment", "value": "3.5%", "context": "Aug 2026, vs. 4.2% national rate"}, {"label": "Regional average wage growth", "value": "4.0%", "context": "$53,050 to $55,176 year over year"}, {"label": "Metro Help Desk pay change", "value": "-significant", "context": "Falls to $44,000 vs. $53,129 national"}, {"label": "National tech layoffs (2026 YTD)", "value": "133,417", "context": "Already exceeds full-year 2025 total"}], "takeaways": [{"headline": "Software Engineer pay is pulling away from the rest of the stack.", "body": "Metro Software Engineer pay rose to $149,094, moving up while Systems Administrator, Network Engineer, and Cybersecurity Analyst pay held stable. Budget allocation appears to be concentrating around build and delivery roles, leaving infrastructure and security compensation exposed to competitive poaching."}, {"headline": "Help desk pay is falling fastest when labor is tightest.", "body": "Metro Help Desk/IT Support pay dropped to $44,000, a significant decline even as regional unemployment sits at 3.4-3.5%. That divergence may suggest employers are automating or consolidating entry-level support work and stepping back from competing for scarce junior talent, a shift worth confirming before headcount plans assume this tier stays easy to fill."}, {"headline": "Security and network talent carry the widest metro-to-national pay gap.", "body": "Cybersecurity Analyst ($89,988 vs. $107,327 national) and Network Engineer ($98,800 vs. $115,757 national) both trail national medians by roughly 17%. Tennessee's 'low hire, low fire' dynamic and constrained statewide growth in computer occupations (2.69% through 2034) mean local organizations cannot assume these gaps close through organic hiring."}, {"headline": "Manufacturing softness is not translating into IT labor supply.", "body": "Regional manufacturing employment fell even as overall unemployment held at multi-year lows, indicating displaced workers are not a pipeline for infrastructure or security roles. IT leaders counting on local labor market slack to ease hiring pressure should recalibrate those assumptions."}], "local_conditions": "Sullivan County unemployment held at 3.5% in August, consistent with Tennessee's statewide rate of 3.4% \u2014 the tightest reading of the year \u2014 leaving little slack for IT employers to draw on local candidate pools. Regional wage growth of roughly 4.0% (from $53,050 to $55,176 average annual pay) signals broad-based compensation pressure even as manufacturing continues shedding jobs, pushing displaced workers toward adjacent sectors that do not require the specialized skills technical roles demand.", "implications": "Metro IT pay sits meaningfully below national medians across most roles \u2014 Systems Administrator ($85,422 vs. $102,503), Network Engineer ($98,800 vs. $115,757), Cybersecurity Analyst ($89,988 vs. $107,327) \u2014 while Software Engineer and IT Project Manager pay are climbing locally, suggesting employers are concentrating retention spend on roles tied to active infrastructure and delivery work and holding pay flat elsewhere. Tight labor supply combined with a widening local-to-national pay gap in security and systems roles makes those functions prime candidates for managed services or regional remote hiring as an alternative to competing dollar-for-dollar against Nashville or national employers; current conditions suggest reviewing which infrastructure and security roles could shift to hybrid or outsourced delivery models before vacancy risk forces a reactive pay correction.", "looking_ahead": [{"category": "Expected", "body": "BLS will release October metro-level unemployment and employment data for Kingsport-Bristol-Bristol on December 2. Confirm whether Sullivan County's 3.5% rate held or tightened further before finalizing Q1 2027 headcount plans."}, {"category": "Emerging pressure point", "body": "National tech layoffs have already exceeded 133,000 workers for 2026, concentrated in large tech hubs such as major coastal markets, with less impact so far on secondary markets like Kingsport. Watch whether any of that displaced talent, particularly in cloud or security specializations, becomes available for remote hire into this metro."}, {"category": "Worth watching", "body": "Software Engineer pay is up locally while Systems Administrator and Network Engineer pay remain flat. If that gap widens further, internal equity pressure between development and infrastructure teams becomes a retention risk worth tracking in the next compensation cycle."}, {"category": "Potential inflection point", "body": "Help Desk/IT Support pay fell significantly this month against a tight regional labor market. Confirm whether this reflects real demand softening versus thin data from a smaller metro before assuming entry-level IT hiring has gotten easier."}], "roles": [{"role": "Data Scientist", "data_scope": "state_rollup", "metro_p25": 111900.0, "metro_p50": 138170.0, "metro_p75": 157500.0, "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": "state_rollup", "metro_p25": 71551.0, "metro_p50": 85422.0, "metro_p75": 93966.25, "metro_trend_direction": "stable", "metro_trend_magnitude": "stable", "national_p50": 102503.0, "national_trend_direction": "up", "national_trend_magnitude": "moderate"}, {"role": "Network Engineer", "data_scope": "state_rollup", "metro_p25": 74522.5, "metro_p50": 98800.0, "metro_p75": 112042.0, "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": "state_rollup", "metro_p25": 110570.0, "metro_p50": 149094.4, "metro_p75": 164580.0, "metro_trend_direction": "up", "metro_trend_magnitude": "moderate", "national_p50": 154403.0, "national_trend_direction": "stable", "national_trend_magnitude": "stable"}, {"role": "Help Desk/IT Support Specialist", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 36380.0, "metro_p50": 44000.0, "metro_p75": 45320.0, "metro_trend_direction": "down", "metro_trend_magnitude": "significant", "national_p50": 53129.0, "national_trend_direction": "down", "national_trend_magnitude": "moderate"}, {"role": "Cybersecurity Analyst", "data_scope": "state_rollup", "metro_p25": 78414.5, "metro_p50": 89988.0, "metro_p75": 101715.0, "metro_trend_direction": "stable", "metro_trend_magnitude": "stable", "national_p50": 107327.0, "national_trend_direction": "up", "national_trend_magnitude": "moderate"}, {"role": "IT Project Manager", "data_scope": "state_rollup", "metro_p25": 78110.0, "metro_p50": 108595.0, "metro_p75": 122848.0, "metro_trend_direction": "up", "metro_trend_magnitude": "moderate", "national_p50": 118149.8, "national_trend_direction": "stable", "national_trend_magnitude": "stable"}], "industry_snapshot": [], "citations": [{"source_name": "USA Facts / Bureau of Labor Statistics", "source_url": null, "statement": "Sullivan County unemployment held at 3.5% in August 2026"}, {"source_name": "Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development", "source_url": null, "statement": "Regional average annual wage rose from $53,050 to $55,176"}, {"source_name": "Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development", "source_url": null, "statement": "Computer and mathematical occupations projected 2.69% growth statewide"}, {"source_name": "Layoffs.fyi / Industry tracking", "source_url": null, "statement": "133,417 tech employees laid off at 325 companies through Oct. 21, 2026"}, {"source_name": "Bureau of Labor Statistics", "source_url": null, "statement": "October 2026 metro BLS data scheduled for release December 2, 2026"}, {"source_name": "Bureau of Labor Statistics", "source_url": null, "statement": "National unemployment rate stable at 4.1-4.2% in October 2026"}], "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": "kingsport-bristol-bristol-tn-va-msa/information-technology/2026-10.html", "pdf": "kingsport-bristol-bristol-tn-va-msa/information-technology/2026-10.pdf"}, "published_at": "2026-11-03T08:24:15.990975+00:00", "report_html_url": "https://reports.wagescape.com/archive/v1/editions/kingsport-bristol-bristol-tn-va-msa/information-technology/2026-10.html", "report_pdf_url": "https://reports.wagescape.com/archive/v1/editions/kingsport-bristol-bristol-tn-va-msa/information-technology/2026-10.pdf"}