Labor Market Pulse · Information Technology · September 2026
Information Technology Labor Market Report: Anderson, SC MSA — September 2026
Anderson IT pay falls as national rates climb and manufacturing hiring surges.
Metro Network Engineer pay dropped to $87,344 against a national rise to $114,400, even as a $215.56 million Adeptus USA investment adds 217 jobs competing for the same regional labor pool.
Free archive edition. Published by WageScape as sent to subscribers; data as of September 2026.
Key indicators
- Anderson County unemployment: 4.0% — Up from 3.6% in May 2026
- Network Engineer pay gap: $27,056 — Metro $87,344 vs national $114,400
- New manufacturing jobs: 217 — Adeptus USA, $215.56M investment, Sept 30
- MSA job growth: +1,300 — Greenville-Anderson-Greer, August 2026
Key takeaways
Network Engineer pay is falling locally while rising nationally.
Metro median advertised pay dropped to $87,344 against a national figure climbing to $114,400 — a $27,000 gap that did not exist a year ago. Organizations anchored to local benchmarks risk losing infrastructure talent to remote or Charleston-based employers paying closer to national rates.
Software Engineer compensation is softening against a stable national market.
Metro median pay for Software Engineers fell to $129,297 while the national figure held stable near $153,652. A widening local discount may reflect weaker local demand signaling, but it also raises retention risk if remote opportunities remain visible to local engineers.
Manufacturing's hiring surge is quietly squeezing technical labor supply.
Adeptus USA's 217-job investment and continued MSA job growth draw on the same regional labor pool IT employers depend on for infrastructure and support staffing. Headcount planning should account for manufacturing and logistics expansion as a competing force on technical wages, not just other tech employers.
Cybersecurity and project management pay are staying put — intentionally or not.
Both Cybersecurity Analyst ($94,411) and IT Project Manager ($113,936) advertised pay held stable locally, even as national cybersecurity pay continued climbing. Stability here may reflect limited local demand rather than market equilibrium, worth testing before assuming these roles are correctly priced.
Median advertised pay by role — Anderson, SC MSA
| Role | 25th percentile | Median advertised pay | 75th percentile | Metro trend | National median |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Data Scientist * | $109,810 | $142,389 | $163,971 | Moderate increase | $148,250 |
| Systems Administrator * | $75,331 | $91,531 | $102,704 | Moderate increase | $101,168 |
| Network Engineer | $79,287 | $87,344 | $100,966 | Moderate decline | $114,400 |
| Software Engineer | $101,285 | $129,297 | $134,346 | Moderate decline | $153,652 |
| Help Desk/IT Support Specialist | $44,544 | $51,315 | $53,040 | Moderate decline | $53,644 |
| Cybersecurity Analyst * | $83,100 | $94,411 | $109,644 | Stable | $106,790 |
| IT Project Manager * | $85,624 | $113,936 | $126,574 | Stable | $117,530 |
* State-level figure shown where metro postings were too few.
WageScape's median is calibrated to correct for spurious low-value postings (reported as the 60th percentile of raw advertised pay). Download: CSV · JSON
Local market conditions
Anderson County's labor market continues to tighten, with unemployment holding near 4.0% even as the Greenville-Anderson-Greer MSA added 1,300 jobs in August and the Adeptus USA wood products facility brought a $215.56 million investment and 217 new jobs to the county on September 30. Manufacturing-led expansion is absorbing local labor supply faster than wages are adjusting, leaving IT and technical employers competing for a shrinking pool of candidates against an industrial sector that can offer immediate, visible capital investment as a recruiting signal.
What it means
Metro IT pay movements are diverging sharply from national trends — Network Engineer and Software Engineer advertised pay both declined locally even as national medians held or rose, suggesting Anderson employers may be under-pricing roles that face statewide and remote-work competition from Charleston and Greenville tech hubs. Persistent manufacturing capital investment nearby is likely to tighten the broader technical labor pool, raising the cost and difficulty of filling infrastructure and support roles that compete for the same technically-skilled workforce. Consider reviewing whether current advertised pay for networking and engineering roles reflects regional competition for talent rather than local supply alone, particularly before reflexively benchmarking against metro-only data.
Looking ahead
Worth watching: Whether Adeptus USA's hiring ramp pulls technical and skilled-trade workers away from IT support and infrastructure roles over the next two quarters as the facility moves from announcement to staffing.
Emerging pressure point: Continued divergence between Anderson's declining Network Engineer and Software Engineer pay and rising national figures — a gap that typically precedes talent attrition to remote roles if left unaddressed.
Potential inflection point: South Carolina's statewide WARN filings remain modest (33 YTD, 4,155 workers) but concentrated in manufacturing; watch whether any technical or IT-adjacent layoffs surface regionally and feed the local candidate pool.
Early indicator: Whether Charleston and Greenville's accelerating tech-sector wage growth begins pulling Anderson-based engineering and security talent toward those metros now that remote work has widened the competitive radius.
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. WageScape observes 98% of U.S. job openings daily.
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