Labor Market Pulse · Information Technology · September 2026
Information Technology Labor Market Report: OR NONMETROPOLITAN AREA — September 2026
Nonmetro Oregon IT pay slides as national rates climb.
Cybersecurity Analyst advertised pay fell significantly to $92,905 locally even as the national median rose to $106,790, a divergence playing out across nearly every IT role tracked this month.
Free archive edition. Published by WageScape as sent to subscribers; data as of September 2026.
Key indicators
- Cybersecurity Analyst pay gap: $92,905 vs $106,790 — Metro down significantly vs national up moderately
- Oregon nonfarm payrolls: -800 jobs (August) — Follows -1,800 in July; professional services hit hardest
- Oregon Information sector level: -8.2% vs pre-pandemic — As of March 2026, Common Sense Institute
- Oregon unemployment rate: 5.1% — 4th-highest among states; flat 18 months
Key takeaways
Local IT pay is falling as national rates climb — a dangerous mismatch.
Cybersecurity Analyst and Systems Administrator advertised pay dropped significantly in this metro while national medians rose moderately, a gap of roughly $14K and $26K respectively. Nonmetro employers anchoring budgets to local postings risk losing candidates to remote-eligible national postings paying substantially more for the same skill.
Support-tier wage floors are rising even as sector employment stays weak.
Oregon's Information sector remains 8.2% below pre-pandemic levels, yet IT technician pay averaged $50,747 statewide in August with premium markets reaching $63,597. Depressed sector headcount is not translating into cheaper labor — scarcity in core skills is holding wage floors up regardless of overall demand.
IT Project Manager pay decline may reflect project deferral, not oversupply.
A significant drop in advertised Project Manager pay locally, against a moderate national increase, is consistent with nonmetro employers pausing discretionary technology initiatives rather than finding abundant local talent. Budget-driven hiring freezes cited nationally by Addison Group likely apply with added force in smaller regional IT shops.
Network Engineer and Help Desk roles show the clearest outsourcing signal.
Both roles posted significant-to-moderate local declines while national rates held or rose, reinforcing the national pattern of permanent demand compression in traditional operations roles. Nonmetro IT leaders may find MSP and remote support contracts increasingly price-competitive against maintaining these positions in-house.
Median advertised pay by role — OR NONMETROPOLITAN AREA
| Role | 25th percentile | Median advertised pay | 75th percentile | Metro trend | National median |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Data Scientist | $111,375 | $132,980 | $148,481 | Stable | $148,250 |
| Systems Administrator | $74,380 | $74,967 | $85,000 | Significant decline | $101,168 |
| Network Engineer | $73,188 | $93,039 | $110,751 | Moderate decline | $114,400 |
| Software Engineer | $115,271 | $141,858 | $156,550 | Moderate decline | $153,652 |
| Help Desk/IT Support Specialist | $41,288 | $55,120 | $66,310 | Significant decline | $53,644 |
| Cybersecurity Analyst | $79,178 | $92,905 | $122,570 | Significant decline | $106,790 |
| IT Project Manager | $98,597 | $119,757 | $121,726 | Significant decline | $117,530 |
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
Oregon's nonmetropolitan areas continue to absorb the state's broader manufacturing contraction and professional-services pullback, with statewide nonfarm payrolls down 800 jobs in August following a 1,800-job loss in July, concentrated in professional and business services roles that often include IT functions embedded in smaller regional employers. Thin local IT labor pools outside Portland, Salem, and Eugene mean nonmetro employers compete directly against metro and remote-eligible pay rates, while advertised pay for most IT roles in this market has moved down moderately to significantly this month even as national rates rise, widening the gap candidates can exploit by going remote.
What it means
Falling advertised pay across Systems Administrator, Network Engineer, Cybersecurity Analyst, and IT Project Manager roles locally — against rising national rates for the same titles — signals that nonmetro employers are losing pricing power to remote-capable competitors, not that demand for these skills has disappeared. This divergence sharpens the build-vs-buy calculus: retaining on-prem infrastructure and security talent locally now costs a wage-rate discount that may not survive attrition, making MSP or hybrid-outsourced support increasingly rational for commodity infrastructure functions. Consider reviewing whether current advertised pay for security and network roles reflects a genuine local labor pool or an outdated rate that remote competitors are actively undercutting from the other direction.
Looking ahead
Expected: Oregon's September employment data releases October 14 and will show whether the professional and business services losses that hit nonmetro-adjacent sectors in July and August continued or stabilized. A third consecutive monthly decline would further pressure local IT budgets tied to broader corporate overhead.
Emerging pressure point: Statewide WARN filings remain modest (24 notices, 2,151 workers in 2026) but recent filings in the Portland area, including the Tualatin facility's phased 87-worker layoff, bear watching for whether displaced technical talent begins filtering into nonmetro remote-work candidate pools.
Worth watching: National Indeed Job Postings Index turned positive year-over-year for the first time in nearly four years, reaching 103.5 in mid-September. If this momentum reaches Oregon's nonmetro postings, local employers may need to reverse this month's downward advertised-pay trend quickly to stay competitive.
Potential inflection point: Minimum wage tiers shifted July 1 (Non-Urban now $14.55/hour), compressing the gap between entry-level IT support pay and general labor rates. Watch whether Help Desk advertised pay — already down significantly locally — stabilizes near this floor or continues sliding, which would signal a structural devaluation of entry-tier IT support work in nonmetro Oregon.
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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