Is Administrative & Office Support a Good Job Market in Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH?

Executive Verdict

Market rating: competitive | Confidence: Medium

Boston is still a workable market for administrative and office support, but it is not an easy one. Metro unemployment was 3.9% in June 2026, Massachusetts administrative and office support employment was up 1.3% year over year, and active postings in the occupation were up 1.8% statewide, which suggests local demand is holding up better than the flat national employment picture and national postings decline for this category.[31][16][17] The catch is that most local openings skew entry level and on-site, while pay often trails Boston living costs.[8][9][1][7]

Best positioned: Candidates with proven on-site coordination, strong customer service, and solid Excel and Microsoft Office skills have the best odds, especially if they can also handle scheduling, presentations, or light bookkeeping in healthcare, property management, or enterprise office settings.[26][19][20][30]

Main caution: Do not assume Boston means remote-friendly or broadly high-paying: about 85% of sampled openings were on-site, and premium executive-support pay is not representative of the broader market.[9][11]

What Changed Recently

• Massachusetts administrative and office support outperformed the national category in July: statewide employment was up 1.3% year over year and active postings were up 1.8%, while national employment was essentially flat and national admin postings were down 8.7%.[16][17]: That is a real reason to keep applying locally even if national headlines about office work feel weaker.
• Boston metro total nonfarm employment rose 0.3755% year over year in June 2026, but Professional and Business Services slipped 0.1377%.[14][15]: That points job seekers toward healthcare, hospitality, retail, and site-based operations rather than assuming pure corporate back-office demand is the main story.[15][21]
• Most local openings still required physical presence: about 85% were on-site, about 10% hybrid, and less than 5% remote.[9]: Candidates waiting for remote admin work are filtering themselves out of most of the market.
• U.S. total nonfarm payrolls reached 158,858 thousand in July 2026, up 0.1993% year over year, but growth was still slow.[13]: For Boston administrative job seekers, that usually means openings persist, but employers keep tighter screens and slower hiring cycles than in a boom.
• Mass General Brigham signaled both risk and opportunity: it announced layoffs focused on hundreds of non-clinical and administrative positions in June 2026, then posted an Administrative Assistant opening in late July.[22][19]: Healthcare remains a live target in Boston, but you should aim at department support roles with clear operational scope rather than assume all hospital admin teams are expanding.

What This Means for You

Entry-Level Candidates

Difficulty: Moderate to high. There are real openings, but many of the same openings are accessible to a large pool of candidates.

Best target: Target on-site administrative assistant, front-desk, and office-coordinator roles in healthcare, hospitality, retail, and property management, where demand appears broadest.[21][9]

Biggest mistake: Applying only to remote jobs or only to glamorous executive-assistant titles.

Next step: Build a resume version that makes customer service, Microsoft Office, Outlook, Word, and Excel impossible to miss, and do not self-screen out if you lack a bachelor's degree because postings that specify education more often ask for high school or equivalent than for a bachelor's.[26][27]

Mid-Career Candidates

Difficulty: Moderate. You have a better shot if you can show ownership rather than task support.

Best target: Aim for hybrid or on-site department coordinator, office operations, and higher-trust administrative roles that ask for scheduling, communications, presentations, and stakeholder support.[5][19]

Biggest mistake: Selling yourself as generic admin labor instead of showing calendar ownership, reporting support, meeting prep, and workflow control.

Next step: Rewrite your last 3 roles around business impact: executives supported, schedules managed, reporting packages produced, vendors handled, and turnaround speed.

Career Switchers

Difficulty: Moderate to high. The path is viable, but employers still want proof that you can operate in an office rhythm.

Best target: Use bridge roles that mix service and coordination, such as client-facing support, investor-services support, or property-operations support, where organization and communication matter as much as pure admin tenure.[28][6][20]

Biggest mistake: Leading with industry background and burying transferable evidence like phones, records accuracy, scheduling, escalation handling, or customer-facing work.

Next step: Create a transition story that translates prior work into appointment setting, documentation accuracy, inbox handling, and stakeholder coordination.

Salary Reality

high pay highly concentrated

The strongest direct local benchmark is a BLS mean wage of $28.64/hour for the metro's office and administrative support group in May 2025.[1] Fresher directional signals are wider: sampled local postings recently centered on about $65k to $85k for salaried roles and about $20 to $24 / hour for hourly roles, while individual recent openings ranged from $17-$18/hour in property management to $22.50-$40.85/hour at Bright Horizons and $30-$40/hour for an onsite Boston support role.[2][3][4][5][6]

That means Boston can pay above many national admin benchmarks, but the market still feels tight against local costs. MIT's February 2026 living-wage estimate for a single adult was $32.46/hour, above the BLS local mean for this occupation.[7][1]

The upside is real if you land salaried executive-support or office-operations work, but the broader market is less generous because most postings are entry level, most are on-site, and salary growth across office support roles looks muted rather than fast.[8][9][10]

Best-paying path: The strongest pay tends to sit in executive-support and office-manager tracks, not basic front-desk coverage.[11]

Caution: Do not anchor on the top of a single pay range: premium listings often come with broader scope, temporary coverage, or stricter onsite expectations, and they are not representative of the full market.[5][6][11]

Where the Opportunities Are Concentrated

Local opportunity is spread across a long tail of employers rather than one dominant buyer. Over the last 90 days, the sample showed more than 1,000 postings across more than 450 companies, and employer concentration looked fragmented.[29][25] The industry mix is practical and site-based: healthcare accounts for about 25% of sampled postings, food and beverage about 20%, retail about 15%, hospitals and health care about 10%, and hospitality about 10%.[21] That mix helps explain why customer service is the top requested skill and why remote-first search strategies usually underperform here.[26][9] The better odds appear to be in non-clinical healthcare office operations, enterprise support teams, and property or facilities offices rather than purely remote assistant work. Recent examples include Bright Horizons in Newton, Mass General Brigham in Boston and Somerville, and a boutique property-management client serving Back Bay, South Boston, and the South End.[5][19][20] Because about 45% of sampled postings came from enterprise employers and about 70% skewed entry level, the market rewards candidates who can step into structured on-site environments quickly.[30][8]

• Non-clinical healthcare and hospital office operations (high): Healthcare-related employers are among the busiest segments in the sample, and Mass General Brigham advertised hybrid admin support focused on schedules, communications, and office operations.[21][19]
• Enterprise office support and temporary coverage (moderate): About 45% of sampled postings came from enterprise employers, and recent examples include temporary or hybrid support roles tied to larger office environments.[30][5]
• Property management and neighborhood-based office support (moderate): Smaller real-estate and property-management employers are hiring for admin work that can include recurring clerical and bookkeeping tasks, but pay can run noticeably lower than premium office-support tracks.[20][4]

Where to focus: Prioritize on-site or hybrid roles that mix coordination with customer service and Excel or Office work in healthcare, education or childcare, property management, and large enterprise offices.[26][5][19][20]

Skills and Credentials Worth Pursuing

• Customer service (table stakes): It was the most-requested hard skill in sampled local postings, showing up in about 25% of roles, which means many employers want stakeholder-facing support rather than pure back-office filing.[26]
• Microsoft Office / Office Suite (table stakes): Microsoft Office appears throughout the local skill mix and in recent named openings, so weak office-software fluency is an avoidable screening problem.[26][5][19]
• Excel (differentiator): Excel shows up repeatedly in the sampled skill mix and in recent Boston-area postings, making it one of the clearest ways to move above basic front-desk competition.[26][5][19]
• Scheduling, communications, and office-operations workflow (differentiator): Recent local roles are asking for more than clerical support, including schedules, communications, presentations, and office operations ownership.[5][19]
• Bookkeeping basics (differentiator): Property-management employers are explicitly looking for office staff who can cover both administrative and bookkeeping tasks, which widens your eligibility for smaller-office roles.[20]
• Adaptability and continuous learning (premium): Support leaders are emphasizing adaptability and continuous learning as AI changes workflows, so employers increasingly value people who can absorb new tools without needing role redesign.[34]
• Certified Administrative Professional (CAP) (differentiator): The CAP is a widely recognized administrative credential in 2026 and can help separate you from other experienced applicants when the job itself does not demand a degree.[35]

Adjacent Roles to Consider

• Business operations coordinator (both): Employers increasingly group office support with broader business operations functions, and recent Boston-area roles pair administrative support with office operations responsibilities.[18][19]
• Investor services coordinator (bridge): A Boston investment firm advertised an Investor Services Coordinator role on its administrative support team, showing a practical bridge from admin into client-facing financial-services support.[6]
• Accounts payable or bookkeeping assistant (pivot): Local property-management employers want office staff who can handle recurring administrative and bookkeeping tasks, which creates a plausible move toward finance-adjacent support work.[20]
• Facilities or property operations coordinator (both): Boston's site-based office market and property-management postings create overlap between admin work, vendor coordination, and building operations support.[20][9]

30 / 60 / 90-Day Plan

First 30 Days

• Split your resume into two versions: one for front-desk or customer-facing support, and one for coordinator or office-operations support.
• Add measurable bullets for calendars, meeting prep, phones, records accuracy, spreadsheet tracking, and turnaround speed.
• Build a target list of hospitals, childcare or education groups, property managers, and large enterprise offices within your commute radius.
• Apply early, not eventually: set alerts and treat openings older than a month as lower-probability unless you have a strong referral.

Days 31-60

• Complete short refreshers in Excel, Outlook, and PowerPoint, plus a basic bookkeeping or AP workflow module if you want smaller-office roles.
• Create a mini portfolio with a clean meeting agenda, travel itinerary, spreadsheet tracker, and inbox or filing process example.
• Add one staffing-firm path for temp, temp-to-hire, and coverage roles, and be explicit about your onsite availability and neighborhood range.
• If you are aiming above basic admin, start CAP prep or another structured credential plan and mention the target date on LinkedIn.

Days 61-90

• If interviews are coming but offers are not, tighten your story around one lane: healthcare office ops, enterprise assistant work, or property and facilities support.
• If response rates are weak, widen your search to bridge roles such as business operations coordinator, investor services support, or bookkeeping-adjacent positions.
• Track pay against commute and career value, and stop spending time on very low-pay roles unless they clearly create a path into a better employer.
• Move up-market by showing business impact in every interview: decision support, scheduling complexity handled, reporting produced, and stakeholders managed.

Methodology and Confidence

This July 2026 report was generated on August 10, 2026. Latest direct national data: July 2026. Latest direct Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH data: September 2026.

Confidence: Overall confidence: Medium. Direct local context is solid, but the freshest occupation-specific pay and hiring detail relies partly on postings and state-level proxies.

Limitations

• The best metro-wide wage benchmark for this category is from May 2025, so current July 2026 pay pressure has to be inferred partly from newer postings and salary guidance rather than brand-new government wage data.[1]
• Boston metro unemployment and payroll context is available through June 2026, and the year-over-year changes used here are preliminary, so small revisions are possible.[31][14][15]
• Statewide occupation data from Revelio Public Labor Statistics was used as a proxy where metro-level monthly occupation measures are not published, so Massachusetts trends may be somewhat stronger or weaker than the Boston metro itself.[16][17][32]
• The Callings.ai job database is a partial, deduplicated sample of online postings, so direction of demand, leading employer names, work arrangements, and skill patterns are more reliable than exact counts or precise shares.[29][33][9][26]
• This category spans receptionist and front-desk work, general administrative support, and higher-trust executive or office-operations roles, so pay ranges can look unusually wide and a single job title does not represent the whole market.[5][6][11]

References

1. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Occupational Employment and Wages in Boston-Cambridge-Newton — May 2025 · 2025-03 · bls.gov
2. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-07 · callings.ai
3. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-07 · callings.ai
4. Appone. Job Information: Administrative Assistant Job · 2026-08 · appone.com
5. Builtinboston. Administrative Assistant - Bright Horizons | Built In Boston · 2026-08 · builtinboston.com
6. Bhsg. Administrative Assistant Boston Massachusetts · 2026-07 · bhsg.com
7. Livingwage. Living Wage Calculator - Living Wage Calculation for Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA · 2026-02 · livingwage.mit.edu
8. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-07 · callings.ai
9. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-07 · callings.ai
10. Bluesignal. 2026 Compensation Trends and Salary Guide - Blue Signal Search · 2025-11 · bluesignal.com
11. Callings. Admin Jobs in Boston: June 2026 Outlook | Callings.ai · 2026-08 · callings.ai
12. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bureau of Labor Statistics Data · 2026-04 · data.bls.gov
13. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bureau of Labor Statistics Data · 2026-07 · data.bls.gov
14. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bureau of Labor Statistics Data · 2026-06 · data.bls.gov
15. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bureau of Labor Statistics Data · 2026-06 · data.bls.gov
16. Reveliolabs. Employment — Revelio Public Labor Statistics (RPLS) · 2026-07 · reveliolabs.com
17. Reveliolabs. Job Openings — Revelio Public Labor Statistics (RPLS) · 2026-07 · reveliolabs.com
18. Builtinboston. Administrative Assistant I - Mass General Brigham | Built In Boston · 2026-07 · builtinboston.com
19. Crewboston. Crewboston - top_employer · 2026-08 · crewboston.org
20. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-07 · callings.ai
21. Facebook. Facebook - layoffs_mass_general_brigham_admin · 2026-06 · facebook.com
22. Warntracker. Joymark, Inc. (dba G2O Spa + Salon) Lays Off 55 Workers — Boston, MA, MA WARN Notice August 2026 · 2026-07 · warntracker.com
23. Reveliolabs. Mass-layoff Notices — Revelio Public Labor Statistics (RPLS) · 2026-07 · reveliolabs.com
24. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-07 · callings.ai
25. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-07 · callings.ai
26. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-07 · callings.ai
27. Robert Half. 2026 Salary Guide: Trends for Administrative and Customer Service Jobs in Canada · 2026-01 · roberthalf.com
28. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-07 · callings.ai
29. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-07 · callings.ai
30. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bureau of Labor Statistics Data · 2026-06 · data.bls.gov
31. Reveliolabs. Salaries — Revelio Public Labor Statistics (RPLS) · 2026-07 · reveliolabs.com
32. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-07 · callings.ai
33. Robert Half. Staffing, Recruitment & Job Search · 2026-05 · roberthalf.com
34. Executiveassistantinstitute. Best Executive Assistant Certification Programs (2026) · 2026-03 · executiveassistantinstitute.com

Live Openings in This Market

This report is published monthly; its companion page tracks the active Administrative & Office Support openings in Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH from the live Callings.ai job index. Browse current Administrative & Office Support openings in Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH.