{"schema_version": 1, "id": "rochester-mn-msa/information-technology/2026-10", "product": "Labor Market Pulse", "metro": {"geography_id": 448, "label": "Rochester, MN MSA", "slug": "rochester-mn-msa"}, "focus_area": {"key": "information_technology", "slug": "information-technology", "label": "Information Technology"}, "period": "2026-10", "public_after": "2026-10-01", "frozen_at": "2026-11-03T03:30:00.795584+00:00", "headline": "Rochester IT pay splits sharply: security and support up, infrastructure down.", "headline_summary": "Cybersecurity Analyst pay in Rochester hit $142,168, outpacing the $107,327 national median, while Systems Administrator pay fell to $80,000 against a rising $102,503 nationally.", "key_indicators": [{"label": "Rochester MSA job change (YoY)", "value": "-730 jobs", "context": "Sept. 2026, down from 2024's 6,882-job annual gain"}, {"label": "Olmsted County unemployment", "value": "3.6%", "context": "July 2026, up 0.5pt vs. July 2025"}, {"label": "Minnesota wage growth", "value": "0%", "context": "Flat YoY vs. 3.7% CPI inflation"}, {"label": "Cybersecurity Analyst advertised pay", "value": "$142,168 metro", "context": "vs. $107,327 national median"}], "takeaways": [{"headline": "Cybersecurity pay gap versus national rate has nearly closed.", "body": "Rochester's $142,168 median for Cybersecurity Analyst now runs above the $107,327 national median, a reversal from the typical metro discount pattern seen in Systems Administrator and Network Engineer roles. This suggests local employers, likely including Mayo Clinic's health-data security needs, are bidding aggressively for scarce security talent and setting pay above national-market terms."}, {"headline": "Infrastructure roles are losing ground on two fronts at once.", "body": "Systems Administrator pay fell significantly locally to $80,000 against a rising $102,503 national median, and Network Engineer pay dropped to $110,299 while the national figure climbed. Combined with metro employment contraction, this pattern is consistent with infrastructure headcount being deprioritized or routed toward outsourced delivery models instead of being competitively repriced."}, {"headline": "Help Desk pay strength may reflect scarcity amid flat hiring.", "body": "Rochester's $60,573 median for Help Desk/IT Support sits well above the $53,129 national figure, which is falling. Rising local support pay amid a cooling metro labor market may suggest employers are struggling to backfill frontline IT roles even as overall hiring slows, a tightness worth tracking against retention risk."}, {"headline": "Software Engineer compensation is the outlier holding steady gains.", "body": "Metro Software Engineer pay rose significantly to $141,846, tracking closely with the $154,403 national median and bucking the broader metro wage compression seen elsewhere. This signals that core development talent remains insulated from the local market's otherwise uneven compensation picture, likely reflecting Mayo Clinic's and regional employers' continued investment in digital health platforms."}], "local_conditions": "Rochester MSA employment contracted by more than 730 jobs year-over-year in September, and Olmsted County's jobless rate held half a point above its July 2025 level even as the county outperforms the state's 4.5% unemployment rate at 3.6%. Mayo Clinic's continued anchor role keeps healthcare-adjacent IT demand resilient, but broader metro cooling, combined with Minnesota's flat wage growth against 3.7% inflation, is tightening the gap between what employers can offer and what technical talent expects to retain purchasing power.", "implications": "Metro-level pay divergence is sharp and role-specific: Cybersecurity Analyst and Help Desk advertised pay are both up significantly even as Systems Administrator and Network Engineer pay fall significantly locally while rising nationally, signaling Rochester employers are reallocating budget toward security and frontline support at the expense of traditional infrastructure roles. That reallocation has direct build-vs-buy consequences \u2014 compressed local Sysadmin and Network Engineer pay against rising national rates makes outsourcing or managed-services arrangements for routine infrastructure increasingly competitive against in-house hiring. Consider reviewing whether current infrastructure staffing reflects a deliberate shift toward security/support investment or an unintended consequence of budget constraints spilling over from the metro's broader employment contraction.", "looking_ahead": [{"category": "Early indicator", "body": "Watch whether Olmsted County's unemployment rate narrows its gap with the 2025 baseline over the next two DEED releases; continued widening would reinforce that metro IT headcount growth is structurally slower than last year's 5.5% employment surge."}, {"category": "Emerging pressure point", "body": "Systems Administrator and Network Engineer pay compression locally, against national gains, raises the question of whether infrastructure outsourcing conversations accelerate in Rochester specifically \u2014 monitor local RFP and managed-services activity as a leading signal."}, {"category": "Worth watching", "body": "3M's October WARN filing and broader Minnesota manufacturing layoff activity could release IT talent with infrastructure and ERP experience into the Rochester-adjacent labor pool; track whether candidate volume for Systems Administrator and Network roles increases in coming weeks."}, {"category": "Potential inflection point", "body": "National AI-related postings now exceed 7% of all job ads, well past the 2022 peak; watch whether Mayo Clinic or regional employers begin advertising AI/ML-specific IT roles locally, which would signal the bifurcated national compensation premium is reaching Rochester."}], "roles": [{"role": "Data Scientist", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 88768.0, "metro_p50": 137850.0, "metro_p75": 156753.5, "metro_trend_direction": "up", "metro_trend_magnitude": "significant", "national_p50": 145881.0, "national_trend_direction": "stable", "national_trend_magnitude": "stable"}, {"role": "Systems Administrator", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 74527.0, "metro_p50": 80000.0, "metro_p75": 84132.5, "metro_trend_direction": "down", "metro_trend_magnitude": "significant", "national_p50": 102503.0, "national_trend_direction": "up", "national_trend_magnitude": "moderate"}, {"role": "Network Engineer", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 88425.25, "metro_p50": 110299.2, "metro_p75": 122078.5, "metro_trend_direction": "down", "metro_trend_magnitude": "significant", "national_p50": 115757.0, "national_trend_direction": "up", "national_trend_magnitude": "moderate"}, {"role": "Software Engineer", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 90738.0, "metro_p50": 141845.6, "metro_p75": 166400.0, "metro_trend_direction": "up", "metro_trend_magnitude": "significant", "national_p50": 154403.0, "national_trend_direction": "stable", "national_trend_magnitude": "stable"}, {"role": "Help Desk/IT Support Specialist", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 47840.0, "metro_p50": 60572.8, "metro_p75": 66078.5, "metro_trend_direction": "up", "metro_trend_magnitude": "significant", "national_p50": 53129.0, "national_trend_direction": "down", "national_trend_magnitude": "moderate"}, {"role": "Cybersecurity Analyst", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 116948.0, "metro_p50": 142168.0, "metro_p75": 164548.0, "metro_trend_direction": "up", "metro_trend_magnitude": "significant", "national_p50": 107327.0, "national_trend_direction": "up", "national_trend_magnitude": "moderate"}, {"role": "IT Project Manager", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 85298.5, "metro_p50": 101660.0, "metro_p75": 116166.5, "metro_trend_direction": "down", "metro_trend_magnitude": "moderate", "national_p50": 118149.8, "national_trend_direction": "stable", "national_trend_magnitude": "stable"}], "industry_snapshot": [], "citations": [{"source_name": "KROC-AM News", "source_url": null, "statement": "Rochester MSA lost over 730 jobs year-over-year in September 2026"}, {"source_name": "KROC-AM News", "source_url": null, "statement": "Olmsted County unemployment rate was 3.6% in July 2026"}, {"source_name": "Minnesota DEED / BLS", "source_url": null, "statement": "Minnesota wages flat YoY while CPI rose 3.7%"}, {"source_name": "Minnesota DEED", "source_url": null, "statement": "Rochester MSA added 6,882 jobs (5.5%) in prior high-growth year"}, {"source_name": "Advertised pay data", "source_url": null, "statement": "National Systems Administrator and Network Engineer pay rising while metro pay falls"}, {"source_name": "Advertised pay data", "source_url": null, "statement": "National Cybersecurity Analyst median advertised pay of $107,327"}], "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": "rochester-mn-msa/information-technology/2026-10.html", "pdf": "rochester-mn-msa/information-technology/2026-10.pdf"}, "published_at": "2026-11-03T08:29:08.041521+00:00", "report_html_url": "https://reports.wagescape.com/archive/v1/editions/rochester-mn-msa/information-technology/2026-10.html", "report_pdf_url": "https://reports.wagescape.com/archive/v1/editions/rochester-mn-msa/information-technology/2026-10.pdf"}