Labor Market Pulse · Information Technology · October 2026
Information Technology Labor Market Report: SC NONMETROPOLITAN AREA — October 2026
Data center boom bypasses Newberry — but pulls its IT talent anyway.
Charleston's tech wages top $130,000 and Spartanburg's new $3 billion data center are drawing talent gravity statewide, while Newberry's Network Engineer pay slips against a national median of $115,757.
Free archive edition. Published by WageScape as sent to subscribers; data as of October 2026.
Key indicators
- SC statewide unemployment: 4.0% — Seventh straight monthly decline, below 4.2% US rate
- Northwestern SC nonmetro mean wage: $52,698 — vs Charleston metro tech wages above $130,000
- Local IT Project Manager pay growth: Significant increase — $126,574 metro vs $118,150 national, stable
- SC WARN notices (YTD Oct 2026): 7,206 workers — Across 51 notices statewide, led by manufacturing
Key takeaways
Nonmetro wage data understates the competitive pressure IT leaders face.
Northwestern SC's $52,698 employment-weighted mean wage sits far below Charleston's $130,000+ tech average, but Newberry employers still compete for the same statewide talent pool. Advertised pay for roles like Systems Administrator (metro median $95,270, trending up) reflects this upward pull even in areas without local data center investment.
Network Engineer pay softness contradicts national tightening.
Metro median Network Engineer pay is down while the national median ($115,757) trends up moderately — a divergence that may signal weaker local demand for on-prem networking skills as organizations lean toward cloud and managed infrastructure. Reviewing whether this role is shrinking in scope locally versus simply under-advertised is worth a closer look before assuming parity with national benchmarks.
IT Project Manager pay is outrunning the national trend.
Metro median IT Project Manager pay ($126,574, rising significantly) now exceeds the national median ($118,150, stable), consistent with data center and infrastructure buildout projects across the state requiring coordination talent. This looks like a structural shift tied to construction and migration project volume — budget accordingly for 2026 project-based hiring.
Skills shortages are the binding constraint on hiring.
South Carolina employers statewide report job openings outpacing qualified candidates even as unemployment falls, consistent with Dunhill Staffing's assessment of a persistently competitive hiring environment. IT leaders in Newberry may find more leverage in upskilling current staff toward cloud and AI competencies than in opening new requisitions.
Median advertised pay by role — SC NONMETROPOLITAN AREA
| Role | 25th percentile | Median advertised pay | 75th percentile | Metro trend | National median |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Data Scientist | $99,088 | $127,500 | $137,626 | Moderate decline | $145,881 |
| Systems Administrator | $76,033 | $95,270 | $107,043 | Moderate increase | $102,503 |
| Network Engineer | $77,500 | $89,805 | $103,519 | Moderate decline | $115,757 |
| Software Engineer | $123,799 | $157,768 | $173,140 | Moderate increase | $154,403 |
| Help Desk/IT Support Specialist | $42,064 | $49,920 | $53,900 | Stable | $53,129 |
| Cybersecurity Analyst | $80,672 | $95,056 | $105,916 | Stable | $107,327 |
| IT Project Manager | $108,085 | $126,574 | $141,018 | Significant increase | $118,150 |
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
Newberry sits inside a nonmetropolitan labor market where South Carolina's seventh straight monthly unemployment decline (to 4.0% statewide) has not fully reached rural counties, leaving a bifurcated picture: statewide IT investment from Google's $3.3 billion Dorchester County buildout, Valara's $3 billion Spartanburg data center, and Meta's $800 million AI facility is concentrating demand and wage pressure in metro corridors, leaving nonmetro areas like Newberry comparatively untouched. Employment-weighted mean wages in the surrounding Northwestern South Carolina nonmetro region ($52,698) trail Charleston's record tech wages above $130,000 by a wide margin, meaning Newberry-based IT functions compete against metro compensation ceilings without metro-level advertised pay to match.
What it means
Proximity to the Charleston-Spartanburg data center corridor raises the real risk that Newberry's IT staff — particularly infrastructure and systems administration talent — view nearby AI and cloud buildout as a credible exit path, even without relocating, given 41% of technologists say they'd trade salary for remote flexibility. Build-vs-buy decisions should account for this: on-prem infrastructure roles in Newberry face recruiting friction against better-funded metro and remote competitors, while managed service and cloud migration options benefit from the regional capacity growth underway nearby. Consider evaluating whether infrastructure and network engineering functions are better retained through compensation adjustment tied to Upstate/Midlands market data, or shifted toward managed service arrangements that reduce exposure to local talent scarcity.
Looking ahead
Emerging pressure point: Valara's Spartanburg data center and Google's Dorchester County expansion are pulling infrastructure and construction-adjacent IT talent statewide. Watch whether Newberry-based systems administrators and network engineers receive outside recruiting contact tied to these projects over the next two months.
Expected: October 2026 nonmetro unemployment data releases November 20 — the first chance to see whether Newberry-area labor supply is tightening in line with the state's seventh consecutive monthly decline or lagging behind it.
Worth watching: Statewide information-sector job losses (2,300 over the year) suggest some IT talent may be entering the broader candidate pool. Track whether displaced workers from larger metro information-sector employers surface in Newberry-area applications.
Potential inflection point: National tech layoffs have already exceeded 133,000 for the year, concentrated in large tech hubs. If any of that displaced talent relocates toward lower-cost nonmetro South Carolina, it could ease sourcing pressure for infrastructure and support roles currently in short supply locally.
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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