Labor Market Pulse · Information Technology · October 2026
Information Technology Labor Market Report: Athens-Clark County, GA MSA — October 2026
Athens IT pay climbs everywhere except cybersecurity.
Metro unemployment held at 3.3% — nearly a point below the 4.1% national rate — while advertised Cybersecurity Analyst pay fell to $95,964 locally even as it rose to $107,327 nationally.
Free archive edition. Published by WageScape as sent to subscribers; data as of October 2026.
Key indicators
- Athens metro unemployment: 3.3% — vs 4.1% national; lowest since Feb. 2024
- Cybersecurity Analyst pay divergence: -$11,363 — Metro $95,964 vs national $107,327
- Metro information-sector employment: -16.7% — Year-over-year, amid record total metro employment
- National tech layoffs, YTD: 133,417 — 325 companies; already exceeds all of 2025
Key takeaways
Help desk pay is moving the fastest in the metro.
Help Desk/IT Support advertised pay rose significantly to a $51,583 metro median while the national figure declined moderately — a reversal of the usual pattern. Local employers competing for entry-tier support talent are bidding against a tight overall labor market (3.3% unemployment), a dynamic driven by local conditions more than national trend lines.
Cybersecurity pay is falling locally while rising nationally.
Metro Cybersecurity Analyst pay moved down moderately to $95,964 even as national pay rose moderately to $107,327. This divergence may suggest fewer high-complexity security roles are being advertised locally, or that Athens employers are leaning on shared regional or outsourced security coverage to meet needs.
Systems and network roles trail national pay by wide margins.
Systems Administrator ($75,272) and Network Engineer ($81,742) sit roughly 27% and 29% below their national medians respectively, even with moderate upward local movement. That gap is consistent with Georgia's cost-arbitrage positioning for infrastructure roles, but it also raises retention risk if remote-capable administrators benchmark against national pay.
Information-sector contraction coexists with record metro employment.
Athens's information sector shrank 16.7% year-over-year even as total metro employment reached an all-time high, driven by government, professional services and retail gains. IT leaders hiring outside pure tech employers should expect candidate pools shaped mainly by institutional and public-sector movement.
Median advertised pay by role — Athens-Clark County, GA MSA
| Role | 25th percentile | Median advertised pay | 75th percentile | Metro trend | National median |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Data Scientist | $113,263 | $136,013 | $144,502 | Moderate increase | $145,881 |
| Systems Administrator | $65,165 | $75,272 | $80,677 | Moderate increase | $102,503 |
| Network Engineer | $51,717 | $81,742 | $93,316 | Moderate increase | $115,757 |
| Software Engineer | $109,122 | $132,392 | $137,182 | Moderate increase | $154,403 |
| Help Desk/IT Support Specialist | $43,979 | $51,583 | $54,760 | Significant increase | $53,129 |
| Cybersecurity Analyst * | $85,498 | $95,964 | $111,818 | Moderate decline | $107,327 |
| IT Project Manager | $79,379 | $85,598 | $109,231 | Moderate increase | $118,150 |
* 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
Athens-Clarke County's labor force and employment hit all-time highs in September 2026, with unemployment at 3.3% — nearly a full point below the 4.1% national rate — even as the metro's information sector contracted 16.7% year-over-year. Government's outsized share of local employment (29.1% versus 10.3% nationally) insulates the metro from the white-collar softness showing up in national information-sector data, but it also means the local IT labor pool skews toward public-sector and institutional demand, with less dependence on private tech scale.
What it means
Metro IT advertised pay is rising across nearly every role tracked this month — Help Desk/IT Support up significantly, Systems Administrator, Network Engineer, Software Engineer and IT Project Manager all up moderately — while Cybersecurity Analyst pay is moving down locally even as it climbs nationally, a divergence that complicates benchmarking for security headcount. With Georgia's domestic IT talent supply failing to meet demand and ~130 BPO operations already drawing 46,000 workers in-state, Athens employers face a tightening local bench for infrastructure and support roles at the same time national data center hiring is drawing talent toward secondary markets like this one. Consider reviewing whether security hiring plans are anchored to local pay data that may be lagging national cybersecurity demand, and evaluate whether infrastructure and support tiers need faster pay action to hold talent against rising advertised rates.
Looking ahead
Worth watching: National tech layoffs have already topped 133,000 through late October, exceeding all of 2025. Watch whether any of that displaced talent — particularly AI, cloud or security specialists — begins appearing in the Athens candidate pool over the next 60 days.
Emerging pressure point: Cybersecurity Analyst pay fell locally while rising nationally; if that gap persists through November, Athens employers may find it harder to retain analysts tempted by remote roles paying national rates.
Potential inflection point: Data center job postings nationally grew 20% in three months, a trend that favors secondary markets with lower-cost real estate and labor. Infrastructure and facilities-adjacent IT headcount planning should account for the possibility this demand reaches Georgia's I-85/I-20 corridor markets near Athens.
Expected: Georgia's professional and technical services sector continues adding jobs statewide, and computer systems design employment is projected to add 7,300+ jobs by 2028. Expect continued upward pressure on advertised pay for software and systems roles even if metro unemployment stays near historic lows.
Sources
- WUGA / Georgia Department of Labor — Athens MSA unemployment at 3.3% in September 2026, labor force at all-time high
- Georgia Economics / BLS — Government comprises 29.1% of Athens metro employment vs 10.3% nationally
- Bureau of Labor Statistics — National unemployment rate at 4.1% in October 2026
- Layoffs.fyi / tech layoff tracker — 133,417 tech employees laid off at 325 companies through October 21, 2026
- Georgia IT labor market research notes — ~130 BPO companies employ ~46,000 across BPO/IT outsourcing in Georgia
- Indeed Hiring Lab — Data center job postings grew 20% in 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. WageScape observes 98% of U.S. job openings daily.
Free to read and cite with attribution to WageScape. Terms of use.