{"schema_version": 1, "id": "va-nonmetropolitan-area/information-technology/2026-10", "product": "Labor Market Pulse", "metro": {"geography_id": 504, "label": "VA NONMETROPOLITAN AREA", "slug": "va-nonmetropolitan-area"}, "focus_area": {"key": "information_technology", "slug": "information-technology", "label": "Information Technology"}, "period": "2026-10", "public_after": "2026-10-01", "frozen_at": "2026-11-03T03:39:07.036233+00:00", "headline": "Rural Virginia IT pay splits: security surges, engineering softens.", "headline_summary": "Metro Cybersecurity Analyst pay has climbed to $125,894 against a national median of $107,327, even as statewide average weekly wages fell 0.3% year-over-year and Software Engineer pay locally dropped to $135,295.", "key_indicators": [{"label": "Metro Cybersecurity Analyst pay", "value": "$125,894", "context": "vs $107,327 national median, up significantly"}, {"label": "Virginia average weekly wage", "value": "$1,302", "context": "Down 0.3% year-over-year (Sept. 2026)"}, {"label": "Virginia unemployment rate", "value": "3.6%", "context": "vs 4.2% national rate (Sept. 2026)"}, {"label": "VA tech-sector WARN filings", "value": "10 notices / 796 workers", "context": "Second-highest among VA industries, past 90 days"}], "takeaways": [{"headline": "Cybersecurity pay is pulling away from the national curve.", "body": "Metro Cybersecurity Analyst advertised pay sits at $125,894, up significantly and nearly $19,000 above the national median of $107,327. Local scarcity of security talent in a thinning rural labor pool appears to be forcing premiums well beyond what national demand alone would justify."}, {"headline": "Systems Administrator pay gains suggest infrastructure roles are getting harder to fill.", "body": "Metro Systems Administrator pay rose to $107,724, outpacing the national median of $102,503. Data center and infrastructure buildout competing for the same limited technical labor base in secondary markets may be driving this, raising the relative cost of on-prem staffing versus cloud or managed alternatives."}, {"headline": "Software Engineer and Data Scientist pay softened while demand held nationally.", "body": "Local Software Engineer pay fell to $135,295 against a stable national median of $154,403, and Data Scientist pay dropped to $130,805 locally. Wider local-national gaps on these roles may reflect softer local demand for advanced technical talent, making remote or hub-based sourcing a more cost-effective option than local hiring for these functions."}, {"headline": "Statewide wage stagnation sharpens the retention gap for in-demand IT skills.", "body": "Virginia's average weekly wage declined 0.3% year-over-year even as national IT systems wages rose 4.7%. Rural IT teams risk losing specialized staff to metro or remote employers offering inflation-beating pay, particularly in cybersecurity and infrastructure where local premiums already show employers bidding up."}], "local_conditions": "Rural Virginia's labor market continues a structural contraction distinct from the state's 3.6% headline unemployment rate, with aging demographics and persistent post-2008 employment declines tightening available talent pools even as hiring demand softens. Flat-to-negative wage growth \u2014 Virginia's average weekly wage fell 0.3% year-over-year to $1,302 in September \u2014 signals employers here have limited room to compete on pay against metro markets pulling from the same rural commuting zones.", "implications": "IT functions serving nonmetro Virginia operations face a shrinking, aging local labor supply for infrastructure and support roles, which strengthens the case for remote-first hiring or nearshoring routine operations to reach candidates outside the immediate region. At the same time, Cybersecurity Analyst advertised pay has climbed significantly in this metro to $125,894 \u2014 well above the $107,327 national median \u2014 suggesting local employers are bidding aggressively for scarce specialized skills despite broader wage stagnation. Consider reviewing whether infrastructure and support roles tied to physical rural locations can shift to hybrid or remote models, freeing budget to compete for security and cloud talent where local scarcity is most acute.", "looking_ahead": [{"category": "Structural risk", "body": "Rural Virginia's employment base has contracted steadily since 2008, and an aging workforce continues to shrink the available technical labor pool. Watch whether local IT employers shift support and administrator hiring toward remote or hybrid models to offset shrinking local supply."}, {"category": "Emerging pressure point", "body": "Technology ranked second among Virginia industries for WARN filings over the past 90 days, with 10 notices affecting 796 employees statewide. Monitor whether released talent reaches nonmetro candidate pools or stays concentrated near urban centers, which would leave rural employers without relief."}, {"category": "Worth watching", "body": "Cybersecurity Analyst pay in this metro already runs well above national levels; continued acceleration would signal structural scarcity building into a sustained trend. Organizations should evaluate whether current pay bands keep pace or risk losing analysts to remote-first employers."}, {"category": "Potential inflection point", "body": "National data center job postings grew 20% in three months while tech hub hiring pulled back, a pattern that could extend into lower-cost rural Virginia sites seeking infrastructure staff. A local uptick in data center-related postings would intensify competition for the same systems administrator and network engineer talent already seeing wage pressure."}], "roles": [{"role": "Data Scientist", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 114732.75, "metro_p50": 130805.0, "metro_p75": 151391.0, "metro_trend_direction": "down", "metro_trend_magnitude": "moderate", "national_p50": 145881.0, "national_trend_direction": "stable", "national_trend_magnitude": "stable"}, {"role": "Systems Administrator", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 89131.0, "metro_p50": 107723.8, "metro_p75": 118614.0, "metro_trend_direction": "up", "metro_trend_magnitude": "moderate", "national_p50": 102503.0, "national_trend_direction": "up", "national_trend_magnitude": "moderate"}, {"role": "Network Engineer", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 80717.0, "metro_p50": 114527.0, "metro_p75": 126800.0, "metro_trend_direction": "stable", "metro_trend_magnitude": "stable", "national_p50": 115757.0, "national_trend_direction": "up", "national_trend_magnitude": "moderate"}, {"role": "Software Engineer", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 108316.0, "metro_p50": 135295.0, "metro_p75": 152695.0, "metro_trend_direction": "down", "metro_trend_magnitude": "moderate", "national_p50": 154403.0, "national_trend_direction": "stable", "national_trend_magnitude": "stable"}, {"role": "Help Desk/IT Support Specialist", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 41600.0, "metro_p50": 62000.8, "metro_p75": 69672.0, "metro_trend_direction": "stable", "metro_trend_magnitude": "stable", "national_p50": 53129.0, "national_trend_direction": "down", "national_trend_magnitude": "moderate"}, {"role": "Cybersecurity Analyst", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 92822.0, "metro_p50": 125894.0, "metro_p75": 140728.0, "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": 95291.0, "metro_p50": 118676.0, "metro_p75": 125100.0, "metro_trend_direction": "up", "metro_trend_magnitude": "moderate", "national_p50": 118149.8, "national_trend_direction": "stable", "national_trend_magnitude": "stable"}], "industry_snapshot": [], "citations": [{"source_name": "Virginia Works", "source_url": null, "statement": "Virginia average weekly wage fell 0.3% year-over-year to $1,302"}, {"source_name": "Virginia Works", "source_url": null, "statement": "Rural Virginia employment has declined structurally since 2008"}, {"source_name": "Virginia Works / BLS", "source_url": null, "statement": "Virginia unemployment held at 3.6% in September 2026"}, {"source_name": "Virginia Works WARN tracker", "source_url": null, "statement": "Technology sector logged 10 WARN notices affecting 796 workers in VA"}, {"source_name": "Indeed Wage Tracker", "source_url": null, "statement": "National IT systems & solutions advertised wages up 4.7% year-over-year"}, {"source_name": "Indeed Hiring Lab", "source_url": null, "statement": "Data center job postings grew 20% over three months nationally"}], "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": "va-nonmetropolitan-area/information-technology/2026-10.html", "pdf": "va-nonmetropolitan-area/information-technology/2026-10.pdf"}, "published_at": "2026-11-03T08:31:44.734377+00:00", "report_html_url": "https://reports.wagescape.com/archive/v1/editions/va-nonmetropolitan-area/information-technology/2026-10.html", "report_pdf_url": "https://reports.wagescape.com/archive/v1/editions/va-nonmetropolitan-area/information-technology/2026-10.pdf"}