Labor Market Pulse · Information Technology · September 2026
Information Technology Labor Market Report: Raleigh-Cary, NC MSA — September 2026
Raleigh's tight labor market hides a tech talent split.
Raleigh's 3.1% unemployment rate — the state's lowest — masks a widening split where Cybersecurity Analyst pay climbs to $114,336 while Network Engineer pay falls to $93,600, even as Epic Games and Red Storm cut 316 Cary jobs.
Free archive edition. Published by WageScape as sent to subscribers; data as of September 2026.
Key indicators
- Raleigh metro unemployment: 3.1% — Lowest in NC, vs 4.1% national rate (Aug 2026)
- Cary tech WARN layoffs: 316 workers — Epic Games (211) + Red Storm Entertainment (105), 2026
- Network Engineer advertised pay: $93,600 metro — Down locally vs $114,400 national, trending up
- NC average IT salary: $99,702 — Cary IT technicians average $53.14/hr
Key takeaways
Cary's tech layoffs are real, but they're not loosening the whole market.
Epic Games and Red Storm Entertainment cut 316 combined jobs in Cary this year, yet Raleigh still posted the state's lowest metro unemployment rate at 3.1% in August. Displaced game-development and engineering talent may be absorbable into cybersecurity or cloud roles rather than signaling broader local IT labor slack.
Network Engineer pay is diverging from the national trend — and that's a signal.
Metro advertised pay for Network Engineer fell to $93,600 while the national median climbed to $114,400, a gap suggesting local employers see less strategic value in traditional on-prem networking roles. Compensation strategy should track this divergence as an early marker of which infrastructure functions are shifting toward outsourcing or cloud consolidation.
Senior technical scarcity is pricing out of the middle, not the top.
Statewide hiring difficulty now resembles 2008 crisis-era conditions for mid-market and senior roles even as entry-level hiring eased for two-thirds of employers. Expect compensation compression at the help desk/support tier alongside continued premium pricing for cybersecurity and cloud specialists — a bifurcation that favors blended internal-plus-contractor staffing models.
Immigrant talent concentration adds hidden retention risk to build decisions.
Immigrants make up roughly a third of North Carolina's software development workforce, a dependency that raises attrition exposure tied to federal enforcement activity. Organizations weighing build-vs-buy for development teams should factor this into retention risk modeling, not just compensation competitiveness.
Median advertised pay by role — Raleigh-Cary, NC MSA
| Role | 25th percentile | Median advertised pay | 75th percentile | Metro trend | National median |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Data Scientist | $114,358 | $139,560 | $150,400 | Stable | $148,250 |
| Systems Administrator | $83,203 | $97,440 | $106,883 | Stable | $101,168 |
| Network Engineer | $56,339 | $93,600 | $110,000 | Moderate decline | $114,400 |
| Software Engineer | $120,880 | $151,297 | $167,408 | Moderate increase | $153,652 |
| Help Desk/IT Support Specialist | $40,476 | $51,525 | $57,500 | Stable | $53,644 |
| Cybersecurity Analyst | $88,211 | $114,336 | $131,423 | Moderate increase | $106,790 |
| IT Project Manager | $96,872 | $113,796 | $128,557 | Moderate 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
Raleigh posted the lowest metro unemployment rate in North Carolina at 3.1% in August, even as Information-sector employment statewide contracted by 700 jobs and WARN filings from Epic Games (211 workers) and Red Storm Entertainment (105 workers) confirmed targeted tech layoffs in Cary itself. A widening gap between easy entry-level hiring and persistent mid/senior technical scarcity — statewide hiring difficulty now tracks levels last seen in 2008 despite low overall layoff volume — is compressing the metro's IT labor market into two distinct tiers.
What it means
Metro-level tightness coexists with real, confirmed local tech attrition, meaning headcount strategy needs to differentiate by tier rather than treat IT labor as one market: entry-level and Tier 1 support roles face loosening supply and falling leverage, while cloud, security, and senior infrastructure talent remain scarce and commanding premium advertised pay. Network Engineer advertised pay in the metro has fallen to $93,600 against a rising $114,400 national median — a signal that local demand for traditional network administration is softening even as cybersecurity ($114,336, trending up) absorbs that same talent pool. Consider evaluating whether support and network administration functions are candidates for contractor or MSP coverage while reserving permanent headcount budget for cybersecurity and cloud architecture roles where local pay is still accelerating.
Looking ahead
Expected: September statewide unemployment data releases October 20 — watch whether Raleigh holds its 3.1% metro low or whether Information-sector contraction (down 700 jobs statewide in August) begins showing up at the metro level.
Worth watching: Track whether Epic Games and Red Storm Entertainment layoffs feed a visible uptick in mid-level engineering candidates in Cary and Wake County postings over the next 60 days, which could ease senior-tier scarcity faster than national trends suggest.
Emerging pressure point: Cybersecurity Analyst advertised pay is up locally (to $114,336) against a national backdrop where senior cybersecurity roles reach $400K — a gap that could accelerate local attrition to remote national employers if compensation benchmarking lags.
Early indicator: Monitor whether Network Engineer's local pay decline ($93,600, down from prior periods) continues or stabilizes — a sustained drop would reinforce the case for outsourcing on-prem network administration rather than rebuilding permanent headcount.
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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