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Labor Market Pulse
Logan, UT-ID Metro Edition
Focus: IT
Cache Valley IT pay splits: security surges, infrastructure slides.
3.1%
Cache County unemployment rate
vs. 4.1% national, 3.5% Utah statewide
$115,000
Cybersecurity Analyst advertised pay
vs. $106,790 national median, up significantly
$99,573
Network Engineer advertised pay
vs. $114,400 national, down significantly locally
69.5K
Logan MSA nonfarm employment
Flat month-over-month, August 2026
This Month's Takeaways
Infrastructure pay is falling locally while rising nationally.
Systems Administrator and Network Engineer advertised pay both declined in the metro even as national medians climbed, with Network Engineer down significantly (metro $99,573 vs. national $114,400). This divergence may suggest local employers are losing competitiveness for infrastructure talent to remote-first national employers rather than facing genuinely softer demand.
Security pay is the one clear local premium story.
Cybersecurity Analyst advertised pay rose significantly to $115,000, now exceeding the national median of $106,790 — unusual for a metro where most IT roles trail national benchmarks. Structural talent scarcity, reinforced by Utah's sub-2% tech unemployment, appears to be forcing employers to pay above-national rates for roles they cannot easily outsource or leave unfilled.
Help desk wages are rising while everything above it softens.
Help Desk/IT Support advertised pay rose to $65,986, well above the $53,644 national median, even as Systems Administrator and Network Engineer pay fell. Compressed entry-level labor supply — a trend state analysts tie to slower immigration and an aging workforce — may be forcing employers to overpay for support talent they once sourced more easily.
Software engineering pay gap with national market keeps widening.
Metro Software Engineer pay sits at $101,026 against a national median of $153,652 — a roughly 34% gap that remote work makes increasingly difficult to defend to candidates. Organizations should evaluate whether build-vs-buy decisions for development work increasingly favor contractors or remote hires over local permanent headcount.
Local Labor Conditions
Cache County's unemployment rate held near 3.1% in mid-2026, among the lowest in Utah, as Professional and Business Services employment grew 5.5% year-over-year even while Local Government contracted 11.3% and Transportation/Warehousing fell 8.3%. Tight regional labor supply, compounded by a thinning junior talent pipeline statewide, is colliding with a local tech wage structure that trails national IT pay by a wide margin — creating retention exposure as remote and hybrid roles let talent arbitrage the gap.
Leadership & Talent Implications
Metro advertised pay for Systems Administrator ($99,814), Network Engineer ($99,573), and Software Engineer ($101,026) all moved down this month while national medians for the same roles rose or held — a divergence that signals local employers are either losing pricing power to remote competitors or quietly shifting these functions toward contract and managed-service delivery. Cybersecurity Analyst pay rose significantly locally ($115,000, outpacing the $106,790 national figure), suggesting Cache Valley employers are paying a scarcity premium to secure security talent they can't backfill through outsourcing. Consider reviewing whether declining local pay for infrastructure roles reflects genuine demand softening or a hidden migration of talent toward remote national employers, before locking in next year's infrastructure headcount budget.
