Labor Market Pulse · Finance · September 2026
Finance Labor Market Report: Orlando-Kissimmee, FL MSA — September 2026
Orlando finance pay softens as national market pulls away.
FP&A Manager pay in Orlando sits 21% below the national median at $100,779 versus $128,139, even as 74% of finance leaders nationally plan to add permanent headcount.
Free archive edition. Published by WageScape as sent to subscribers; data as of September 2026.
Key indicators
- Orlando metro unemployment: 4.6% — Up from 3.3% a year earlier (BLS, June 2026)
- FP&A Manager pay gap: $100,779 vs $128,139 — Metro vs national median, gap widened this cycle
- National F&A talent shortage index: 77% — Reversed from 108% surplus in 2025
- Florida minimum wage: $15.00/hr — Effective Sept 30, 2026, then CPI-W indexed annually
Key takeaways
Orlando's FP&A Manager pay gap is now too wide to ignore.
Metro median sits at $100,779 against a national figure of $128,139 — a 21% gap that has moved from moderate to significant this cycle. Remote work options make this gap directly shoppable for candidates, raising flight risk for incumbents in budget and forecasting leadership.
Financial Analyst pay is softening locally while the national market holds firm.
Metro median fell to $84,614 even as the national figure held stable near $94,782, a divergence consistent with Orlando's looser overall labor market rather than any national demand pullback. Treat this as a local supply signal, not evidence that analyst talent has gotten cheaper to retain.
Entry-level finance roles are absorbing the minimum wage increase first.
Florida's move to $15 effective September 30 lands directly on billing, AP/AR, and administrative finance support roles, and advertised pay for Billing Specialist is already up moderately both locally and nationally. Expect compression against Senior Accountant and Credit Analyst pay bands that have not moved proportionally.
National sector job losses mask a local credentialing shortage.
Financial activities have shed 129,000 jobs nationally since May 2025, yet the 2026 Talent Shortage Index for accounting/finance professionals sits at 77% — a reversal from last year's surplus. Orlando's below-replacement CPA pipeline suggests headcount reductions are concentrated in commoditized roles, not the specialized talent Finance leaders are still competing hardest for.
Median advertised pay by role — Orlando-Kissimmee, FL MSA
| Role | 25th percentile | Median advertised pay | 75th percentile | Metro trend | National median |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Controller | $73,472 | $115,000 | $124,665 | Moderate decline | $113,754 |
| Senior Accountant | $72,500 | $80,936 | $85,000 | Stable | $87,731 |
| Financial Analyst | $69,904 | $84,614 | $95,904 | Moderate decline | $94,782 |
| Billing Specialist | $37,334 | $44,659 | $50,000 | Moderate increase | $49,512 |
| Tax Specialist | $42,108 | $58,266 | $65,560 | Moderate increase | $65,842 |
| Credit Analyst | $55,277 | $61,813 | $64,775 | Moderate increase | $71,758 |
| FP&A Manager | $86,607 | $100,779 | $112,832 | Significant decline | $128,139 |
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
Orlando's Finance hiring pool is expanding faster than demand for it: metro unemployment climbed to 4.6% at midyear against a labor force that grew by 17,000 even as employment rose by only 6,000, loosening the broader talent market even as finance-specific skills remain scarce nationally. Florida's minimum wage jump to $15 on September 30 compounds payroll pressure at the entry level just as the state's 93-job-seekers-per-100-openings ratio signals a market that is tight in specialized roles but increasingly loose everywhere else.
What it means
National F&A leaders are hiring aggressively — 74% plan permanent headcount increases — but Orlando's advertised pay tells a different story, with Controller, Financial Analyst, and FP&A Manager medians all down or soft against rising national figures, suggesting local employers are either lagging the national repricing of finance talent or quietly substituting automation and shared-services models for headcount growth. That gap creates real retention exposure for metro employers who assume national compensation trends apply locally when candidates with specialized skills — reporting, FP&A modeling, ERP, AI competency — can now benchmark against a national market paying significantly more. Consider reviewing whether current offer levels for FP&A and analyst-track roles reflect a genuine metro discount or a lag that will cost you candidates to remote-friendly, better-paying national employers.
Looking ahead
Emerging pressure point: Florida's minimum wage escalator now ties future increases to CPI-W, meaning entry-level finance support payroll will rise automatically every year going forward. Model this into multi-year headcount cost planning rather than treating September's increase as a one-time adjustment.
Worth watching: Orlando led Florida with 576 cumulative WARN notices historically, and L3Harris's April filing affecting 63 employees shows the exposure isn't limited to hospitality. Watch whether any finance or back-office functions appear in upcoming notices, which could loosen supply for analyst and accounting roles.
Potential inflection point: Nearly half of organizations nationally expect direct labor rate increases above 4% for finance talent, while Orlando's advertised pay for Controller and FP&A Manager roles is moving the opposite direction. If that gap persists through Q4, expect accelerated attrition among mid-career finance staff testing the national market.
Expected: Automation and shared-services adoption is already offsetting F&A headcount growth nationally; Orlando's relatively soft local pay signals may reflect employers leaning harder into this substitution rather than competing directly for scarce specialized talent. Track whether job postings for Financial Analyst and Senior Accountant roles increasingly list automation-adjacent skills as a requirement.
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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