{"schema_version": 1, "id": "mansfield-oh-msa/information-technology/2026-09", "product": "Labor Market Pulse", "metro": {"geography_id": 274, "label": "Mansfield, OH MSA", "slug": "mansfield-oh-msa"}, "focus_area": {"key": "information_technology", "slug": "information-technology", "label": "Information Technology"}, "period": "2026-09", "public_after": "2026-09-01", "frozen_at": "2026-10-09T13:16:38.626475+00:00", "headline": "Mansfield software pay surges past national median as Columbus pulls talent.", "headline_summary": "Metro software engineer pay hit $171,000 against a $153,652 national median, while help desk pay lagged at $49,920 versus $53,644 nationally, reflecting a widening split between scarce technical talent and commoditized support roles.", "key_indicators": [{"label": "Metro unemployment rate", "value": "3.9%", "context": "Up from 3.2% in May; still below Ohio's 3.3%"}, {"label": "Software engineer advertised pay", "value": "$171,000", "context": "vs $153,652 national median"}, {"label": "Help desk advertised pay", "value": "$49,920", "context": "vs $53,644 national median"}, {"label": "Ohio labor force change", "value": "-95,000 YoY", "context": "Statewide contraction despite falling unemployment"}], "takeaways": [{"headline": "Metro software engineer pay is outpacing the national median.", "body": "Advertised pay for software engineers in Mansfield sits at $171,000 against a $153,652 national figure, a notable premium for a metro this size. This likely reflects scarcity rather than cost-of-living parity \u2014 a signal that local organizations competing for engineering talent should expect to pay above typical small-metro discounts."}, {"headline": "Help desk pay is stuck below national levels, and that's a retention risk.", "body": "Metro help desk and IT support pay is stable at $49,920, nearly $3,700 below the $53,644 national median. Commodity support roles may be the easiest to lose to remote competitors or Columbus-based employers offering better pay for comparable work."}, {"headline": "Labor force contraction is masking real hiring difficulty.", "body": "Mansfield's unemployment rate swings between 3.2% and 3.9% this year largely reflect workers leaving the labor force, not expanding payrolls. A tight apparent unemployment rate shouldn't be read as labor abundance \u2014 effective candidate pools for specialized IT roles remain shallow."}, {"headline": "Columbus's data center boom is pulling talent gravity north.", "body": "Columbus data center employment grew 54% between 2021 and 2024, positioning it as a magnet for infrastructure and cloud engineers across the state. Mansfield employers may need to reassess whether in-house infrastructure teams are sustainable against that pull or whether managed services better protect against turnover."}], "local_conditions": "Mansfield's labor force contracted to a 3.9% preliminary unemployment rate in June after a 3.2% May reading, consistent with the statewide pattern of workers exiting the labor force rather than a genuine demand slowdown. Manufacturing, healthcare, and retail still anchor roughly half of metro employment, leaving the local IT labor pool thin and dependent on talent commuting from or benchmarked against Columbus, where data center expansion is pulling infrastructure and cloud talent out of smaller markets like Richland County.", "implications": "Mansfield employers compete for IT talent against a Columbus market now ranked among the largest data center hubs globally, meaning infrastructure and cybersecurity hires increasingly benchmark their offers against metro-Columbus pay rather than local norms. With software engineer advertised pay in the metro at $171,000 \u2014 above the $153,652 national median \u2014 build-vs-buy decisions for custom development may tilt further toward outsourcing or contract augmentation, while scarce senior engineering talent gets retained rather than replaced. Organizations should evaluate whether commodity support functions like help desk, where metro pay sits below national median at $49,920 versus $53,644, are better suited to outsourcing or regional shared-services models than continued local hiring.", "looking_ahead": [{"category": "Worth watching", "body": "Ohio's statewide labor force shrank by 95,000 people year-over-year even as unemployment fell, a dynamic likely to persist locally. Watch whether Mansfield's effective candidate supply for technical roles continues tightening despite headline unemployment staying low."}, {"category": "Emerging pressure point", "body": "National cybersecurity pay averages $191.7K with senior roles reaching $400K, a gap Mansfield employers cannot realistically close. Expect continued pressure to either outsource security operations or accept longer vacancy durations for specialized hires."}, {"category": "Potential inflection point", "body": "AI-driven compression of traditional IT operations roles, flagged nationally by CompTIA and SHRM data, may accelerate in smaller metros where support staff are harder to reskill quickly. Consider whether current support headcount should shift toward higher-value cloud or security functions over the next two quarters."}, {"category": "Early indicator", "body": "Ohio WARN activity remains concentrated in manufacturing and transportation, with 18 notices affecting 3,134 workers statewide in the last 90 days. Monitor whether any Richland County manufacturing disruptions release IT or technical staff into the local pool, a potential sourcing opportunity for infrastructure roles."}], "roles": [{"role": "Data Scientist", "data_scope": "state_rollup", "metro_p25": 113673.25, "metro_p50": 140092.0, "metro_p75": 157602.0, "metro_trend_direction": "stable", "metro_trend_magnitude": "stable", "national_p50": 148250.0, "national_trend_direction": "up", "national_trend_magnitude": "moderate"}, {"role": "Systems Administrator", "data_scope": "state_rollup", "metro_p25": 73779.0, "metro_p50": 91209.0, "metro_p75": 102720.0, "metro_trend_direction": "up", "metro_trend_magnitude": "moderate", "national_p50": 101168.0, "national_trend_direction": "up", "national_trend_magnitude": "moderate"}, {"role": "Network Engineer", "data_scope": "state_rollup", "metro_p25": 72020.0, "metro_p50": 103821.0, "metro_p75": 120124.25, "metro_trend_direction": "up", "metro_trend_magnitude": "moderate", "national_p50": 114400.0, "national_trend_direction": "up", "national_trend_magnitude": "moderate"}, {"role": "Software Engineer", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 150004.0, "metro_p50": 171000.0, "metro_p75": 182031.0, "metro_trend_direction": "up", "metro_trend_magnitude": "significant", "national_p50": 153652.0, "national_trend_direction": "stable", "national_trend_magnitude": "stable"}, {"role": "Help Desk/IT Support Specialist", "data_scope": "state_rollup", "metro_p25": 40638.0, "metro_p50": 49920.0, "metro_p75": 57500.0, "metro_trend_direction": "stable", "metro_trend_magnitude": "stable", "national_p50": 53644.0, "national_trend_direction": "stable", "national_trend_magnitude": "stable"}, {"role": "Cybersecurity Analyst", "data_scope": "state_rollup", "metro_p25": 82380.0, "metro_p50": 99737.0, "metro_p75": 116477.0, "metro_trend_direction": "up", "metro_trend_magnitude": "moderate", "national_p50": 106790.0, "national_trend_direction": "up", "national_trend_magnitude": "moderate"}, {"role": "IT Project Manager", "data_scope": "state_rollup", "metro_p25": 85339.0, "metro_p50": 110896.0, "metro_p75": 123840.0, "metro_trend_direction": "stable", "metro_trend_magnitude": "stable", "national_p50": 117530.0, "national_trend_direction": "up", "national_trend_magnitude": "moderate"}], "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": "mansfield-oh-msa/information-technology/2026-09.html", "pdf": "mansfield-oh-msa/information-technology/2026-09.pdf"}, "published_at": "2026-10-09T14:32:46.386757+00:00", "report_html_url": "https://reports.wagescape.com/archive/v1/editions/mansfield-oh-msa/information-technology/2026-09.html", "report_pdf_url": "https://reports.wagescape.com/archive/v1/editions/mansfield-oh-msa/information-technology/2026-09.pdf"}