{"schema_version": 1, "id": "tulsa-ok-msa/finance/2026-08", "product": "Labor Market Pulse", "metro": {"geography_id": 378, "label": "Tulsa, OK MSA", "slug": "tulsa-ok-msa"}, "focus_area": {"key": "finance", "slug": "finance", "label": "Finance"}, "period": "2026-08", "public_after": "2026-08-01", "frozen_at": "2026-10-09T16:27:27.770685+00:00", "headline": "Tulsa Finance pay splits: FP&A rises as Controller pay softens.", "headline_summary": "FP&A Manager advertised pay climbed to a $124,497 metro median while Controller pay slipped to $103,495, even as statewide financial activities employment shed 300 jobs year-over-year.", "key_indicators": [{"label": "Tulsa unemployment rate", "value": "3.6%-3.7%", "context": "Up from 3.1% in Aug 2025"}, {"label": "Oklahoma financial activities jobs", "value": "-300 YoY", "context": "Contrasts with 74% of F&A leaders planning hires"}, {"label": "Metro job growth pace", "value": "~250/month", "context": "2026 average, down from historical trend"}, {"label": "Oklahoma vs national unemployment", "value": "4.3% vs 4.1%", "context": "20bp spread, moderately slower than U.S."}], "takeaways": [{"headline": "FP&A pay is pulling away from Controller pay in Tulsa.", "body": "FP&A Manager advertised pay rose significantly to a $124,497 metro median while Controller pay softened to $103,495 \u2014 a reversal of the traditional hierarchy. Budget planning that still treats Controller as the top compensation tier in the finance org chart may be working from outdated assumptions."}, {"headline": "Tax Specialist demand looks like a genuine market shift, not noise.", "body": "Metro Tax Specialist pay climbed to $70,000, now exceeding the $66,725 national median, even as the broader financial activities sector shed jobs statewide. This is consistent with elevated demand for compliance and audit-readiness capacity amid a stable but scrutinized $18 billion state revenue environment."}, {"headline": "Financial activities job losses complicate the tight-labor-market narrative.", "body": "Oklahoma financial activities employment fell 300 positions year-over-year even as national F&A hiring managers report aggressive headcount plans, with 74% expecting to add permanent staff in H2 2026. Local hiring plans may need to account for a candidate pool shaped more by displacement than by growth-driven competition."}, {"headline": "Cooling metro job growth doesn't mean cooling recruiting difficulty.", "body": "Metro job creation has slowed to roughly 250 positions monthly in 2026, yet national data shows 61% of F&A hiring managers finding skilled candidates harder to source than a year ago. Slower headline growth may mask a persistent skills mismatch that keeps offers above planned salary ranges for business-critical roles."}], "local_conditions": "Tulsa's unemployment rate has drifted from 3.1% in August 2025 to 3.6-3.7% by year-end, and monthly job growth has slowed to roughly 250 positions in 2026 versus historical pace, consistent with the state's broader cooling even as energy sector employment holds firm at 47,390 jobs. Financial activities payrolls contracted by 300 positions year-over-year statewide, a signal that finance and accounting headcount is not immune to the slowdown despite tight national competition for skilled talent.", "implications": "Slower metro job growth combined with a shrinking financial activities payroll base suggests Tulsa Finance leaders face a paradox: fewer open requisitions locally, but no easing in difficulty filling technical or AI-adjacent roles, since 90% of finance leaders nationally still report struggling to fill critical positions. Controller pay has softened locally to a $103,495 median against a stable $112,500 national figure, while FP&A Manager pay has moved up significantly to $124,497 \u2014 a divergence that suggests budget dollars are shifting toward forward-looking analytical capacity rather than traditional oversight roles. Consider reviewing headcount cost models to weight FP&A and technical accounting premiums more heavily than legacy controllership benchmarks when building 2027 budget assumptions.", "looking_ahead": [{"category": "Worth watching", "body": "Financial activities payrolls contracted statewide in 2025; watch whether Q3 2026 data shows this stabilizing or extending into Tulsa specifically, which would affect assumptions about local finance talent supply for 2027 planning."}, {"category": "Emerging pressure point", "body": "AI and technical accounting premiums are running 6-56% above base pay nationally. Track whether Tulsa employers begin advertising explicit AI-skill premiums for FP&A and technical accounting roles, which would signal the national trend has reached this metro's job postings."}, {"category": "Potential inflection point", "body": "Tulsa's unemployment rate has risen roughly half a point since mid-2025 while state unemployment climbed 0.9 points year-over-year, among the largest increases nationally. A continued rise could soften the FP&A and Tax Specialist pay gains seen this month as candidate supply eases."}, {"category": "Expected", "body": "BLS occupational wage data for Tulsa lags roughly a year (May 2025 figures released in August 2026); expect the next major refresh to reveal whether current advertised-pay divergences between Controller and FP&A roles are showing up in filled-position wage data."}], "roles": [{"role": "Controller", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 76153.0, "metro_p50": 103495.0, "metro_p75": 112846.0, "metro_trend_direction": "down", "metro_trend_magnitude": "moderate", "national_p50": 112500.0, "national_trend_direction": "stable", "national_trend_magnitude": "stable"}, {"role": "Senior Accountant", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 73430.75, "metro_p50": 78739.0, "metro_p75": 80000.0, "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": 67553.0, "metro_p50": 76364.0, "metro_p75": 82500.0, "metro_trend_direction": "stable", "metro_trend_magnitude": "stable", "national_p50": 82905.0, "national_trend_direction": "stable", "national_trend_magnitude": "stable"}, {"role": "Billing Specialist", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 34276.5, "metro_p50": 41600.0, "metro_p75": 46747.0, "metro_trend_direction": "down", "metro_trend_magnitude": "moderate", "national_p50": 49700.0, "national_trend_direction": "up", "national_trend_magnitude": "moderate"}, {"role": "Tax Specialist", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 38302.0, "metro_p50": 70000.0, "metro_p75": 75679.0, "metro_trend_direction": "up", "metro_trend_magnitude": "significant", "national_p50": 66725.0, "national_trend_direction": "up", "national_trend_magnitude": "significant"}, {"role": "Credit Analyst", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 56700.0, "metro_p50": 67650.0, "metro_p75": 72652.25, "metro_trend_direction": "down", "metro_trend_magnitude": "moderate", "national_p50": 72000.0, "national_trend_direction": "up", "national_trend_magnitude": "moderate"}, {"role": "FP&A Manager", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 101082.0, "metro_p50": 124497.0, "metro_p75": 140409.0, "metro_trend_direction": "up", "metro_trend_magnitude": "significant", "national_p50": 127341.0, "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": "September 2026", "files": {"html": "tulsa-ok-msa/finance/2026-08.html", "pdf": "tulsa-ok-msa/finance/2026-08.pdf"}, "published_at": "2026-10-09T16:36:17.679368+00:00", "report_html_url": "https://reports.wagescape.com/archive/v1/editions/tulsa-ok-msa/finance/2026-08.html", "report_pdf_url": "https://reports.wagescape.com/archive/v1/editions/tulsa-ok-msa/finance/2026-08.pdf"}