Labor Market Pulse · Finance · September 2026
Finance Labor Market Report: Burlington-South Burlington, VT MSA — September 2026
Burlington finance pay slides even as talent stays scarce.
Chittenden County unemployment sits at 2.3% while metro Controller pay fell to $107,568 against a rising $113,754 national median, a gap Finance leaders should not ignore.
Free archive edition. Published by WageScape as sent to subscribers; data as of September 2026.
Key indicators
- Chittenden County unemployment: 2.3% — vs 2.6% statewide, among tightest in U.S.
- Chittenden County employment change: -1.8% — YoY through March 2026, 345th of 371 large counties
- Controller advertised pay, metro vs national: $107,568 vs $113,754 — Metro down significantly, national up moderately
- Average weekly wage, Chittenden County: $1,521 — Up 3.4% YoY, Q1 2026, ranks 121st nationally
Key takeaways
Metro finance pay is falling while the talent pool is not.
Controller, Tax Specialist, and Credit Analyst advertised pay all declined locally even as national medians moved up, a divergence that is hard to justify given 2.3% county unemployment. Budget-driven pay suppression in a labor-scarce market is a retention risk, not a cost saving.
National F&A hiring rebound has not reached Burlington postings.
Nationally, 74% of finance and accounting leaders plan to add permanent headcount and the sector's Hiring Index hit 134%, yet metro advertised pay for core finance roles is flat-to-down. Local organizations may be underpricing roles relative to a national market now actively recruiting the same CPA and accounting talent pool.
FP&A Manager pay is the one role holding its ground.
FP&A Manager advertised pay sits at $136,754 locally versus $128,139 nationally, stable in both directions — a signal that planning and forecasting expertise is being protected even as transactional finance roles see cuts. Expect this premium to widen if close-cycle and audit-readiness demands increase headcount reliance on fewer, higher-skilled FP&A hires.
Housing scarcity is now a compensation-strategy constraint.
Chittenden County's housing shortage, with no meaningful supply relief expected before 2027-28, is compounding labor force decline rather than just suppressing population growth. Total rewards packages may need to account for relocation and housing-cost realities directly, not just base pay, to close candidate gaps.
Median advertised pay by role — Burlington-South Burlington, VT MSA
| Role | 25th percentile | Median advertised pay | 75th percentile | Metro trend | National median |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Controller | $88,985 | $107,568 | $128,750 | Significant decline | $113,754 |
| Senior Accountant | $77,111 | $85,020 | $92,625 | Moderate decline | $87,731 |
| Financial Analyst | $72,500 | $83,357 | $92,500 | Stable | $94,782 |
| Billing Specialist | $46,646 | $53,666 | $63,314 | Moderate decline | $49,512 |
| Tax Specialist | $55,984 | $59,713 | $59,713 | Significant decline | $65,842 |
| Credit Analyst * | $48,448 | $63,712 | $67,500 | Moderate decline | $71,758 |
| FP&A Manager | $111,799 | $136,754 | $136,754 | Stable | $128,139 |
* 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
Chittenden County unemployment held at an exceptionally tight 2.3% in September while the broader metro economy contracted, with county employment down 1.8% year-over-year through March — a combination driven by retirements, shrinking labor force participation, and a Vermont-wide housing shortage that is constraining worker inflows into the Burlington core. Financial activities nationally shed 7,000 jobs in September and have lost 129,000 since May 2025, a contraction pattern that appears consistent with Burlington's own advertised pay softening across Controller, Tax Specialist, and Credit Analyst roles even as talent scarcity persists.
What it means
Metro pay data showing declines in Controller ($107,568), Tax Specialist ($59,713), and Credit Analyst ($63,712) advertised rates against rising national medians suggests Burlington employers are either compressing finance budgets amid sector-wide headwinds or losing competitiveness in a labor pool too thin to notice — neither is a sustainable position given 2.3% unemployment. Headcount cost planning should account for the gap between local wage deceleration and the national F&A hiring surge (74% of finance leaders planning headcount increases, per recent industry surveys), since Burlington employers competing only against local comparables risk losing scarce accounting and analyst talent to remote-eligible roles paying national rates. Consider reviewing whether Controller and Tax Specialist postings are priced against outdated local comparables rather than the national labor market increasingly accessible to Vermont candidates.
Looking ahead
Expected: UVM Health Network's WARN-related layoffs, already on file, will not be felt until October — watch whether released clinical and finance-adjacent administrative staff enter the Burlington candidate pool and soften pay pressure in support roles.
Emerging pressure point: Vermont's collective bargaining amendment goes to vote November 3 with 65% support in September polling; a change in bargaining structure could reshape labor cost exposure for public-sector-adjacent finance functions well before year-end budget cycles close.
Worth watching: National financial activities sector has now shed 129,000 jobs since May 2025, concentrated in insurance carriers; monitor whether this contraction begins pulling experienced finance talent into the tight Burlington market, a dynamic that could ease some role-specific scarcity by Q1.
Potential inflection point: Average hourly earnings growth nationally decelerated to 3.0% year-over-year in September, below forecast — if this moderation reaches Vermont's wage data, it may validate current metro pay softening rather than signal a local competitiveness problem.
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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