{"schema_version": 1, "id": "lawrence-ks-msa/finance/2026-09", "product": "Labor Market Pulse", "metro": {"geography_id": 228, "label": "Lawrence, KS MSA", "slug": "lawrence-ks-msa"}, "focus_area": {"key": "finance", "slug": "finance", "label": "Finance"}, "period": "2026-09", "public_after": "2026-09-01", "frozen_at": "2026-10-09T13:28:17.885097+00:00", "headline": "Lawrence finance pay splits: leadership roles up, support roles flat.", "headline_summary": "Controller pay hit a metro median of $113,971 and FP&A Manager pay rose to $116,040, even as Douglas County unemployment edged up to 4.2% and national Financial Activities payrolls kept contracting.", "key_indicators": [{"label": "Douglas County unemployment", "value": "4.2%", "context": "Up from 4.1% in July; above 3.8% Kansas statewide"}, {"label": "National Financial Activities job losses", "value": "-129,000", "context": "Since May 2025, led by insurance carriers"}, {"label": "F&A hiring intent", "value": "74%", "context": "Finance leaders planning permanent headcount growth, 2H 2026"}, {"label": "National wage growth deceleration", "value": "3.0% YoY", "context": "September average hourly earnings, below 3.2% forecast"}], "takeaways": [{"headline": "Finance headcount story is bifurcated, not uniformly contracting.", "body": "National Financial Activities payrolls lost 7,000 jobs in September and 129,000 since May 2025, concentrated in insurance carriers, while 74% of finance and accounting leaders report plans to grow permanent headcount. Budget cycle assumptions built on sector-wide contraction likely miss where actual hiring pressure sits \u2014 controllership and FP&A roles, not back-office processing."}, {"headline": "Controller and FP&A Manager pay are pulling away from the rest of finance.", "body": "Metro Controller pay rose to a median $113,971 and FP&A Manager pay climbed to $116,040, both trending up, while Senior Accountant ($82,769) and Credit Analyst ($62,577) held stable. Compensation benchmarking cycles that treat finance as one cost pool risk underfunding retention at the leadership tier where demand is actually accelerating."}, {"headline": "Tax Specialist pay decline locally cuts against the national grain.", "body": "Metro Tax Specialist advertised pay dropped significantly to $43,229, even as the national median rose significantly to $65,842 amid a broader CPA and accountant talent shortage. A gap this wide may signal a thin local candidate pool is suppressing posted rates rather than reflecting genuine demand softness \u2014 worth validating before setting a hiring budget for this role."}, {"headline": "Interim and project staffing is becoming the default flex-capacity tool.", "body": "Regional Fed contacts report climbing interim and project-based hiring in accounting, IT, and operations amid mixed economic signals, a pattern that fits automation-driven restraint in F&A permanent headcount nationally. Audit season and close-cycle staffing plans may increasingly lean on contract talent rather than new permanent requisitions."}], "local_conditions": "Douglas County unemployment ticked up to 4.2% in August, tracking above both the Kansas state rate of 3.8% and reflecting job growth concentrated in construction and leisure/hospitality while financial activities and retail employment contracted over the year. Kansas Financial Activities payrolls fell 600 jobs in April (-0.8% year-over-year), consistent with the national pattern of finance sector contraction \u2014 the industry has shed 129,000 positions nationally since May 2025, led by insurance carriers.", "implications": "National finance sector job losses are coinciding with an unusual hiring posture \u2014 74% of finance and accounting leaders plan to increase permanent headcount in the second half of 2026, and the 2026 Talent Shortage Index jumped to 77% from a 2025 Talent Surplus of 108%, signaling that headcount reductions are concentrated in specific subsectors (insurance, back-office processing) rather than reflecting broad finance talent oversupply. Lawrence metro Controller pay rose to a median $113,971, nearly matching the national figure, while FP&A Manager pay climbed to $116,040 locally against $128,139 nationally \u2014 both moving up even as Senior Accountant and Credit Analyst pay held flat, suggesting employers are concentrating scarce compensation dollars on senior finance leadership rather than broad-based raises. Organizations should evaluate whether budget cycle planning assumes uniform finance labor cost inflation, when local data suggests the pressure is concentrated at the Controller and FP&A Manager levels.", "looking_ahead": [{"category": "Emerging pressure point", "body": "Douglas County unemployment has drifted from 4.1% to 4.2% over two months even as Kansas statewide holds at 3.8%, a local divergence worth tracking for signs of metro-specific softening in finance hiring pipelines."}, {"category": "Worth watching", "body": "National average hourly earnings growth decelerated to 3.0% year-over-year in September, below the 3.2% expected, easing near-term wage budget pressure \u2014 watch whether this translates to flatter advertised pay for Lawrence finance roles beyond Controller and FP&A Manager."}, {"category": "Potential inflection point", "body": "Kansas Financial Activities payrolls contracted 0.8% in April; confirm whether Q3 2026 data shows this stabilizing or deepening, as it bears directly on whether Lawrence-area finance hiring freezes are temporary or structural."}, {"category": "Early indicator", "body": "Zero WARN notices filed in Kansas over the trailing 90 days as of late September suggests no imminent local talent influx from layoffs \u2014 a tight labor supply backdrop that may keep Controller and FP&A Manager advertised pay elevated into Q4."}], "roles": [{"role": "Controller", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 107500.0, "metro_p50": 113971.4, "metro_p75": 115000.0, "metro_trend_direction": "up", "metro_trend_magnitude": "significant", "national_p50": 113754.0, "national_trend_direction": "up", "national_trend_magnitude": "moderate"}, {"role": "Senior Accountant", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 68717.0, "metro_p50": 82769.0, "metro_p75": 83202.75, "metro_trend_direction": "stable", "metro_trend_magnitude": "stable", "national_p50": 87731.0, "national_trend_direction": "stable", "national_trend_magnitude": "stable"}, {"role": "Financial Analyst", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 70000.0, "metro_p50": 76719.0, "metro_p75": 76719.0, "metro_trend_direction": "up", "metro_trend_magnitude": "moderate", "national_p50": 94782.0, "national_trend_direction": "stable", "national_trend_magnitude": "stable"}, {"role": "Billing Specialist", "data_scope": "state_rollup", "metro_p25": 33532.0, "metro_p50": 38160.0, "metro_p75": 44720.0, "metro_trend_direction": "stable", "metro_trend_magnitude": "stable", "national_p50": 49512.0, "national_trend_direction": "up", "national_trend_magnitude": "moderate"}, {"role": "Tax Specialist", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 32995.0, "metro_p50": 43229.0, "metro_p75": 44488.5, "metro_trend_direction": "down", "metro_trend_magnitude": "significant", "national_p50": 65842.4, "national_trend_direction": "up", "national_trend_magnitude": "significant"}, {"role": "Credit Analyst", "data_scope": "state_rollup", "metro_p25": 55160.0, "metro_p50": 62577.0, "metro_p75": 65479.25, "metro_trend_direction": "stable", "metro_trend_magnitude": "stable", "national_p50": 71758.0, "national_trend_direction": "up", "national_trend_magnitude": "moderate"}, {"role": "FP&A Manager", "data_scope": "state_rollup", "metro_p25": 95790.0, "metro_p50": 116039.8, "metro_p75": 129880.0, "metro_trend_direction": "up", "metro_trend_magnitude": "moderate", "national_p50": 128139.0, "national_trend_direction": "stable", "national_trend_magnitude": "stable"}], "industry_snapshot": [], "citations": [], "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": "October 2026", "files": {"html": "lawrence-ks-msa/finance/2026-09.html", "pdf": "lawrence-ks-msa/finance/2026-09.pdf"}, "published_at": "2026-10-09T14:32:04.369663+00:00", "report_html_url": "https://reports.wagescape.com/archive/v1/editions/lawrence-ks-msa/finance/2026-09.html", "report_pdf_url": "https://reports.wagescape.com/archive/v1/editions/lawrence-ks-msa/finance/2026-09.pdf"}