Is Administrative & Office Support a Good Job Market in Denver-Aurora-Centennial, CO?

Executive Verdict

Market rating: competitive | Confidence: Medium

Denver is still a real market for office support rather than a dead end: the metro employed 258,880 workers in Office and Administrative Support in May 2025, and the group made up 11.4% of all local employment.[1][27] The challenge is that fresh openings are softer than the broader labor market: Colorado office-support employment is essentially flat year over year while active postings are down 8.9%, even as the national job openings rate sits at 4.4%.[14][15][13] Locally, there is still meaningful activity, with more than 650 postings across more than 350 companies in the last 90 days, but the mix is heavily entry-level and about 90% on-site.[20][7][8]

Best positioned: Candidates with 1-2 years of experience, strong customer-facing communication, Microsoft 365 skills, and willingness to work on-site have the best odds, especially in healthcare, senior living, and large employers.[18][26][5]

Main caution: The biggest mistake is assuming this market is mostly remote executive-assistant work; only about 5% of sampled roles are remote, and the current mix leans toward front-desk, customer service, and business-office support.[8][26]

What Changed Recently

• Colorado administrative & office support employment is essentially flat year over year, but active postings are down 8.9% in July 2026.[14][15]: That usually means people already in the field are holding onto jobs, while job seekers changing employers face a tighter opening flow.
• The local opening mix is broad rather than concentrated: more than 650 postings were observed across more than 350 companies over the last 90 days, and hiring is fragmented across employers.[20][21]: You are less dependent on one big employer cycle, but you also need a wider application strategy instead of waiting for a single 'perfect' role.
• National hiring is still moving, but slowly: total U.S. nonfarm employment reached 158,858 thousand in July 2026, up 0.1993% year over year, and the national openings rate was 4.4% in June 2026.[12][13]: The broader economy is not in retreat, but it is not hot enough to make administrative hiring easy for underqualified applicants.
• Large metro expansion projects may add back-office spillover demand: RK Industries announced 1,786 new Aurora jobs and Raven Space Systems 392 new Broomfield jobs in April 2026.[22]: These projects do not guarantee office-support openings, but they can create coordinator, scheduling, reception, and office-management needs over time.

What This Means for You

Entry-Level Candidates

Difficulty: Moderate to high. There are many junior openings, but that also means heavy applicant volume.

Best target: On-site front desk, business-office, administrative assistant, and coordinator roles in healthcare, senior living, hospitality, and large multi-site employers.

Biggest mistake: Applying only to remote roles or only to polished executive-assistant jobs without first building proof you can handle phones, scheduling, customers, and office systems.

Next step: Create two resume versions now: one for customer-facing office support and one for coordinator/admin assistant work, each showing scheduling, call handling, document accuracy, and Microsoft 365.

Mid-Career Candidates

Difficulty: Moderate. Better-paying roles exist, but they are fewer and employers screen harder for judgment, discretion, and process ownership.

Best target: Administrative coordinator, office manager, executive-support, and higher-complexity assistant roles at large employers.

Biggest mistake: Listing tasks instead of outcomes, such as calendars managed, leaders supported, vendors coordinated, travel handled, or reporting improved.

Next step: Rewrite your resume around business outcomes and add one short portfolio page with calendar management, meeting logistics, process cleanup, reporting, and executive-support examples.

Career Switchers

Difficulty: High unless you can translate prior experience cleanly.

Best target: Business-office, reception, scheduler, or coordinator roles where customer service, phone work, cash handling, or hospitality experience maps directly.

Biggest mistake: Presenting your background as unrelated when many Denver postings clearly reward service skills and operational reliability.

Next step: Build a transition story that connects your prior work to phones, scheduling, conflict handling, documentation, and pace, then add a short Microsoft 365 or Excel proof project.

Salary Reality

stable pay slow advancement

The cleanest local benchmark is the BLS: Office and Administrative Support roles in Denver had a median wage of $22.22 an hour in May 2025, with a 25th-75th percentile range of $18.59 to $27.91 and a mean of $24.79.[1] Current posting proxies are mixed: sampled annual salary ranges center on about $62k to $78k, hourly-paid postings center on about $19 to $21 / hour, Colorado new-opening offered pay averages about $54,572 in July 2026 (n=2,132), and recent local examples include $24–$26/hour, $46,000 to $59,000, and $52,000 to $62,000.[2][3][4][5][6]

This is a workable but not unusually high-paying market for general office support. The better numbers usually show up when the role moves from pure clerical coverage into coordination, executive support, or office operations ownership.[1][2][6]

The tradeoff is access versus leverage: about 75% of sampled openings are entry-level and about 90% are on-site, so many jobs are reachable, but fewer give you negotiating power on flexibility or title.[7][8]

Best-paying path: The strongest pay tends to sit in salaried coordinator and higher-complexity assistant roles at larger employers, not in generic front-desk openings.[9][2][6]

Caution: Do not treat the about $62k to $78k posting center as the normal admin salary for every role. That sample includes a narrower set of salary-posting employers and sits alongside a separate hourly market centered around about $19 to $21 / hour.[2][3]

Where the Opportunities Are Concentrated

Real opportunity is not spread evenly across classic corporate admin jobs. In the local sample, healthcare and food & beverage each account for about 30% of postings, while hospitality and retail are each about 10%.[18] That means a lot of the market is tied to business-office, front-desk, scheduling, and customer-facing support rather than pure executive-assistant work. Healthcare is one of the cleaner targets if you want steady in-scope office work. One Medical appears among local administrative-assistant employers in Aurora, and The Argyle in Denver posted an Administrative Assistant role supporting business-office operations at $24–$26 per hour for someone with 1–2 years of administrative or HR experience.[19][5] That points to demand for reliable coordination, phones, documentation, and office support inside care settings, even though medical records and billing belong in a neighboring category. A second pocket is large employers and high-volume operators. About 30% of sampled postings come from large employers and about 20% from enterprise employers, while Dominos is the most consistently active named employer with more than 100 postings in the sample.[9][25] Those roles can be faster to land, but many tilt toward customer service, phone etiquette, cash handling, or other operations-adjacent tasks rather than senior executive support.[26]

• Healthcare business-office and senior-living support (high): Healthcare accounts for about 30% of sampled postings, and local signals include One Medical in Aurora and a business-operations administrative opening at The Argyle in Denver.[18][19][5]
• Large-employer service and multi-site support roles (moderate): About 30% of postings come from large employers and about 20% from enterprise employers, with Dominos the most consistently active named employer in the sample.[9][25]
• Higher-paid coordinator and advanced assistant roles (limited): These roles are where the better salary bands show up, but they are a smaller slice of the market than entry-level openings and require more proof of process ownership.[2][7][6]

Where to focus: If you want the best mix of hiring volume and fit, focus first on on-site business-office and front-desk roles in healthcare, senior living, and large employers, then use that to step into better-paid coordinator work.

Skills and Credentials Worth Pursuing

• Microsoft 365 / Office (table stakes): Local postings still call for Microsoft Office, and national admin-skills guidance now expects stronger Microsoft 365 fluency rather than basic familiarity.[26][17]
• Phone etiquette (table stakes): Phone etiquette appears in about 15% of local postings, which fits a market that is heavily on-site and front-desk oriented.[26][8]
• Customer service (table stakes): Customer service shows up in about 20% of local postings, so employers are often buying calm communication and service recovery, not just clerical output.[26]
• Business operations / process coordination (differentiator): Indeed Hiring Lab says Business Operations skills dominate employer requests for corporate administrative positions, which is the clearest path out of low-complexity admin work.[16]
• AI assistant fluency (differentiator): Managers are already using AI widely, and current admin guidance increasingly names tools like Microsoft Copilot and ChatGPT as core productivity tools.[28][17]
• Project-management platforms (differentiator): Administrative-skills guidance now includes tools such as Asana, Monday.com, and Notion, which matter when roles shift from task support to coordination and follow-through.[17]
• Certified Administrative Professional (CAP) (premium): CAP is one of the named credentials for administrative professionals in 2026 and can help separate you from the large pool of applicants competing for similar entry and mid-level roles.[29]

Adjacent Roles to Consider

• Project Coordinator (both): This is a natural move for admins who already handle meetings, timelines, and follow-ups, and it aligns with the market's emphasis on business operations skills and project-management tools.[16][17]
• Patient Access Representative or Medical Office Coordinator (bridge): Healthcare represents about 30% of the local admin-posting mix, and healthcare employers such as One Medical appear in the local signal set.[18][19]
• HR Coordinator or Recruiting Coordinator (pivot): Some local hiring already overlaps admin and HR-adjacent experience; for example, The Argyle asked for 1-2 years of administrative or HR experience.[5]
• Accounts Payable Coordinator or Payroll Support (pivot): This path fits admins who are strong on accuracy, spreadsheets, and process discipline, and it lines up with the wider shift toward business-operations skill sets.[16][17]

30 / 60 / 90-Day Plan

First 30 Days

• Build three resume versions: front desk/customer-facing, general administrative assistant, and coordinator/business-operations.
• Apply only to roles posted in the last 7-10 days and prioritize on-site openings, since this market is overwhelmingly in-person.
• Create a one-page proof pack showing calendar management, meeting logistics, document formatting, Excel or Sheets cleanup, and a simple AI-assisted workflow you built.
• Target employer lists by segment instead of title alone: healthcare, senior living, hospitality, and large multi-site employers.

Days 31-60

• Finish one concrete upgrade with labor-market value, such as advanced Microsoft 365, Excel reporting, or a short CAP-aligned admin course.
• Add project-tool familiarity by learning one platform deeply enough to show task boards, deadline tracking, and meeting follow-up.
• Rewrite your LinkedIn headline and summary around business operations support, not just 'admin' or 'assistant.'
• Run a response audit: if front-desk roles respond but coordinator roles do not, your current resume is not proving process ownership strongly enough.

Days 61-90

• If interviews remain sparse, widen the net into adjacent categories like patient access, HR coordination, project coordination, or AP support.
• Package your experience into measurable stories: leaders supported, calls handled, scheduling volume, documents processed, customers served, or errors reduced.
• Aim for one stepping-stone role rather than waiting for a perfect executive-assistant opening; the higher-paid path is easier after local tenure.
• Treat AI fluency as part of your pitch by demonstrating how you use tools to draft, summarize, organize, and speed routine office work.

Methodology and Confidence

This July 2026 report was generated on August 10, 2026. Latest direct national data: August 2026. Latest direct Denver-Aurora-Centennial, CO data: July 2026.

Confidence: Overall confidence: Medium. Direct local occupation data exists, but the freshest occupation-level wage and employment figures lag the report month, and some near-term conclusions rely on directional hiring proxies.

Limitations

• The strongest local wage and employment benchmark for this occupation in Denver is from May 2025, so the hard local numbers are useful but not fully current for a July 2026 job search.
• Recent direction-of-demand signals for office support rely partly on statewide occupation data because equivalent metro-level monthly occupation data is not consistently published, so Colorado is used as a proxy for the Denver area in those sections.
• The year-over-year state labor-force and employment changes used here are preliminary and may be revised, so treat them as directional rather than final.
• Administrative & Office Support covers very different job types, from front desk and receptionist work to coordinator and executive-support roles, so pay, required skills, and competition can differ a lot inside the same category.
• The Callings.ai job database is a partial, deduplicated sample of online postings, so it is more reliable for reading demand direction, leading employer names, work arrangement, and skill patterns than for treating exact counts or percentage shares as a full census of the market.

References

1. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Occupational Employment and Wages in Denver-Aurora-Centennial — May 2025 · 2026-07 · 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. Reveliolabs. Salaries — Revelio Public Labor Statistics (RPLS) · 2026-07 · reveliolabs.com
5. Hiringcafe. Administrative Assistant-Business Operations at The Argyle — Denver, CO · 2026-08 · hiringcafe.com
6. Hiringcafe. Administrative Coordinator Jobs in Centennial, CO | HiringCafe · 2026-08 · hiringcafe.com
7. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-07 · callings.ai
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. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bureau of Labor Statistics Data · 2026-06 · data.bls.gov
11. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bureau of Labor Statistics Data · 2026-04 · data.bls.gov
12. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bureau of Labor Statistics Data · 2026-07 · data.bls.gov
13. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bureau of Labor Statistics Data · 2026-06 · data.bls.gov
14. Reveliolabs. Employment — Revelio Public Labor Statistics (RPLS) · 2026-07 · reveliolabs.com
15. Reveliolabs. Job Openings — Revelio Public Labor Statistics (RPLS) · 2026-07 · reveliolabs.com
16. Indeed Hiring Lab. Skill Set, Match - Indeed Hiring Lab · 2026-04 · hiringlab.org
17. Frontlinesourcegroup. Top Skills Administrative Professionals Need in 2026 · 2024-05 · frontlinesourcegroup.com
18. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-07 · callings.ai
19. Donewithwork. Administrative Assistant Jobs in Colorado — 28+ Jobs | DoneWithWork · 2026-08 · donewithwork.com
20. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-07 · callings.ai
21. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-07 · callings.ai
22. Oedit. Expansion or Relocation | Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade · 2026-04 · oedit.colorado.gov
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. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Occupational Employment and Wages in Denver-Aurora-Centennial — May 2025 · 2026-04 · bls.gov
28. Robert Half. AI for administrative assistants: Tools, skills and career growth tips · 2026-04 · roberthalf.com
29. Upskillist. Best courses for executive assistants in 2026 · 2025-11 · upskillist.com

Live Openings in This Market

This report is published monthly; its companion page tracks the active Administrative & Office Support openings in Denver-Aurora-Centennial, CO from the live Callings.ai job index. Browse current Administrative & Office Support openings in Denver-Aurora-Centennial, CO.