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

Executive Verdict

Market rating: competitive | Confidence: High

Denver is still a viable market for Administrative & Office Support, but it is not an easy one right now. The metro had 168,520 office and administrative support workers in 2025, representing 10.5% of total metro employment, yet August 2026 unemployment was 4.6%, up from 3.8% a year earlier, and Colorado statewide postings for this occupation were down 17.0% year over year in September 2026.[1][2][3][4] More than 550 recent postings across more than 350 companies show that openings still exist, but the mix is heavily entry-level and mostly on-site, so expect competition and slower response cycles rather than a hiring surge.[5][6][7]

Best positioned: The best odds right now belong to candidates who can show solid Microsoft Office and Excel use, fast and accurate data entry, customer-facing experience, and willingness to work on-site.[8][7]

Main caution: Do not assume the broad posted salary bands are typical for all admin jobs; the local BLS median for the occupation family is $53,050, while recent posted salaried ranges center higher and often reflect narrower or more senior roles.[9][10]

What Changed Recently

• Metro unemployment reached 4.6% in August 2026, up 21.1% year over year from 3.8%.[3]: That raises general competition around clerical and support openings, even though jobs have not disappeared.
• Colorado administrative and office support postings were down 17.0% year over year in September 2026, while statewide employment in the occupation was down 0.5%.[4][15]: Fresh openings are thinner than last year, so targeted applications and fast follow-up matter more than volume alone.
• Denver Professional and Business Services employment was 318.9 thousand in August 2026, up only 0.1885% year over year.[29]: Corporate-office demand is still present, but growth is weak, which helps explain why many admin searches feel slower.
• National CPI was up +3.0% year over year in August 2026, and average hourly earnings for total private workers were up +3.0% in September 2026.[27][28]: For Denver job seekers, flat or modestly higher offers may not improve real purchasing power much.
• Denver's proposed 2027 budget avoids layoffs and furloughs, but it would reduce the general-fund workforce by 10 full-time-equivalent positions after 957 positions were eliminated in the prior budget cycle, including about 190 layoffs.[31]: Public-sector admin hiring looks cautious, so city-government openings may be steadier but not especially plentiful.

What This Means for You

Entry-Level Candidates

Difficulty: Moderate to high. A lot of local demand sits in entry-level roles, but that also means heavier applicant traffic.[6]

Best target: Target on-site front-desk, receptionist, customer service, and general office jobs in restaurants, healthcare, retail, and hospitality, which make up most observed local demand.[18][7][6]

Biggest mistake: Applying only to remote admin jobs and ignoring customer-facing openings.

Next step: Build one resume version for front-desk/customer-facing work and another for general office support, then apply within a realistic commute radius and follow up within a week.

Mid-Career Candidates

Difficulty: High if you present yourself as a generic admin; better if you show systems ownership, coordination, and workflow improvement.

Best target: Aim at office manager, senior admin, executive-support, and coordination-heavy roles that call for Microsoft Office, Excel, project tools, or process improvement skills.[8][19]

Biggest mistake: Leaning on years of experience alone instead of showing calendar control, reporting, vendor coordination, or workflow results.

Next step: Rewrite your resume around outcomes: scheduling complexity handled, reporting built, processes cleaned up, and software used.

Career Switchers

Difficulty: Moderate if you already have retail, hospitality, or customer-facing operations experience.

Best target: Go after customer-facing admin jobs where customer service, cash handling, communication, and time management transfer cleanly.[8]

Biggest mistake: Jumping straight to executive assistant roles before proving office-systems fluency and written business communication.

Next step: Add a short Excel and Office refresher, create a clean admin-style resume, and use specific examples of scheduling, records, customer intake, and issue resolution.

Salary Reality

stable pay slow advancement

Observed government pay for the metro sits in the moderate range: BLS reports a mean hourly wage of $27.91 for office and administrative support occupations, with annual pay around $46,270 at the 25th percentile, $53,050 at the median, $58,040 at the mean, and $64,790 at the 75th percentile in 2025 data.[2][21][9][11][22] Proxy measures read differently: recent Denver-area posted salaried ranges center on about $60k to $78k, hourly postings center on about $19 to $22 / hour, and Revelio Public Labor Statistics shows mean offered salary on new Colorado openings near $55,278 in September 2026, based on n=1,210 postings.[10][23][24]

For most general admin jobs, Denver pays somewhat better than the national office-support median of $47,450 and mean of $51,560, but still well below Colorado's mean offered salary across all occupations of about $71,353.[25][26][24]

The offset is that competition is real and real wage gains are thin. National inflation is running at +3.0% year over year, while total private hourly earnings are also up +3.0%, so nominal offers that look acceptable may feel tight in practice.[27][28]

Best-paying path: The strongest pay tends to sit in executive assistant, senior administrative assistant, and office manager tracks rather than general clerical work; Robert Half expects those roles to see above-average salary growth, and it projected a 2027 midpoint salary of $73,000 for executive assistants nationally.[19]

Caution: Top-end figures are real but concentrated. Less than 5% of observed local postings are senior and less than 5% are lead+, so high salary examples should not be treated as the typical outcome.[6]

Where the Opportunities Are Concentrated

Real openings are spread across a long tail of employers rather than one dominant office-employer cluster. In the recent local sample, hiring was fragmented across employers, with more than 550 postings across more than 350 companies, and named repeat hirers included Domino's Inc. and Planet Fitness, Inc.[5][16][17] The most practical opportunity pockets are customer-facing and site-based. Restaurants account for about 20% of observed postings, while healthcare, retail, hospitality, and hospitals and health care each account for about 15%.[18] That lines up with the skill mix too: customer service, Microsoft Office, data entry, Excel, communication, and time management show up repeatedly.[8] Where job seekers overreach is at the top end. Local supply is broad, but senior slots are not: about 75% of postings are entry level, about 25% are mid, and senior and lead roles are each less than 5%.[6] So the market rewards candidates who can land quickly in broad-access on-site roles, then climb by adding coordination, systems, and process ownership.

• Customer-facing front desk and service admin (high): This is the clearest volume lane locally, especially across restaurants, retail, hospitality, healthcare, and hospital settings, with skills like customer service, cash handling, data entry, and Microsoft Office showing up often.[18][8]
• General office coordination in business services (moderate): Professional and Business Services remains a relevant employer base in Denver, with 318.9 thousand jobs in August 2026, but year-over-year growth was only 0.1885%, so this lane is real but not fast-growing.[29]
• Senior executive support and office management (limited): This path can pay better, but supply is tight because less than 5% of local postings are senior and less than 5% are lead+, even though executive assistant and office manager roles are among the nationally stronger salary-growth tracks.[6][19]

Where to focus: Focus first on on-site, coordination-heavy openings where Microsoft Office, Excel, data entry, and customer service are explicit requirements, then stretch into office-manager or project-coordination tracks once you can prove systems ownership.[8][7][19]

Skills and Credentials Worth Pursuing

• Microsoft Office and Excel (table stakes): These are among the most-requested local skills and are the baseline screen for a large share of admin roles.[8]
• Data entry accuracy (table stakes): Data entry shows up repeatedly in local postings and is one of the simplest ways to make prior retail, hospitality, or clerical experience look directly relevant.[8]
• Customer service and front-desk communication (table stakes): Customer service is the single most common skill in the local posting mix, which reflects how much demand sits in customer-facing admin jobs rather than back-office-only roles.[8]
• Cash handling and transaction comfort (differentiator): Cash handling appears often enough locally to matter because restaurants, retail, and hospitality make up a large share of observed demand.[18][8]
• Project-management tools and project coordination (differentiator): National employer guidance points to project-management tools and project coordination as skills that support higher-value admin careers and stronger compensation.[19]
• Workflow automation and AI literacy (premium): Robert Half flags AI literacy and workflow automation as compensation-relevant skills, and 83% of administrative and customer-support leaders said they would pay more for specialized or technology-enabled skills.[19][20]
• Process improvement, business systems, and customer-facing technologies (premium): These skills are tied to career growth beyond routine task work and are part of the move from basic admin support into coordination and operations-adjacent roles.[19]

Adjacent Roles to Consider

• Project coordinator (both): This is one of the clearest next-step roles from administrative work when you already handle calendars, meeting logistics, follow-ups, and reporting, and it is specifically identified as a common transition path.[33]
• Operations support specialist (both): Operations-support work is another named transition path from administrative roles, especially for candidates who already coordinate schedules, documents, vendors, or multi-step workflows.[33]
• Healthcare support admin (pivot): Healthcare and hospitals and health care each account for about 15% of observed local admin-office postings, and U.S. education and health services employment is up +1.9% year over year, which makes healthcare-admin pathways a realistic neighboring option.[18][34]

30 / 60 / 90-Day Plan

First 30 Days

• Split your resume into two versions: one for customer-facing/front-desk work and one for office coordination and executive-support work.
• Add a visible software block with Excel, Outlook, Word, scheduling tools, and any reporting or CRM systems you have used.
• Build a one-page proof sheet with 5-7 concrete examples: calendars managed, records cleaned, calls handled, reports produced, or customer issues resolved.
• Apply only to jobs within a commute you can reliably sustain, then follow up once at day 7 and once at day 21 with a short value-focused note.

Days 31-60

• Take a short Excel refresher and complete one project-management or workflow-tool course so you can credibly target coordination-heavy roles.
• Start a second application lane for project coordinator and operations-support roles instead of staying only in generic admin titles.
• Collect two references who can speak to reliability, pace, organization, and communication under pressure.
• Track interview feedback by theme: software gaps, industry fit, communication, or commute concerns, then fix the biggest blocker first.

Days 61-90

• Choose your lane: broad-access on-site admin, higher-pay executive support, or an adjacent move into project coordination or healthcare support admin.
• If results are weak, widen employer types rather than just titles, especially across healthcare, hospitality, retail, and business-services settings.
• Build one portfolio-style sample set: a cleaned spreadsheet, a meeting agenda, a follow-up tracker, and a simple SOP to show how you work.
• Negotiate from evidence by anchoring to the specific lane you are targeting, not to the broadest salary headline you can find.

Methodology and Confidence

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

Confidence: Overall confidence: High. The report is anchored by recent local labor data and supported by multiple local context signals.

Limitations

• The best local wage benchmark for the full office-and-admin occupation group is still based on May 2025 data published in August 2026, so current offers can sit above or below the official wage tables.[2][11][9]
• This category is broad: executive assistants, front-desk staff, office managers, clerks, and customer-facing admin jobs can have very different pay and hiring patterns, so no single title perfectly represents the whole market.[2][8]
• Several August 2026 local labor figures are preliminary and may be revised, so year-over-year changes should be read as direction rather than a final settled estimate.[3][12][13][14]
• Some occupation-direction signals are only available at the Colorado statewide level, so statewide Administrative & Office Support employment and posting changes were used as a proxy for the Denver metro when metro-by-occupation data was not published.[15][4]
• The Callings.ai job database is a partial, deduplicated sample of online postings, which makes direction of demand, leading employer names, and skill patterns more reliable than exact counts or exact market share.[5][16][8]

References

1. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bureau of Labor Statistics Data · data.bls.gov
2. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Occupational Employment and Wages in Denver-Aurora-Centennial — May 2025 : U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics · 2026-08 · bls.gov
3. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bureau of Labor Statistics Data · 2026-08 · data.bls.gov
4. Reveliolabs. Job Openings — Revelio Public Labor Statistics (RPLS) · 2026-09 · reveliolabs.com
5. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-09 · callings.ai
6. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-09 · callings.ai
7. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-09 · callings.ai
8. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-09 · callings.ai
9. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bureau of Labor Statistics Data · data.bls.gov
10. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-09 · callings.ai
11. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bureau of Labor Statistics Data · data.bls.gov
12. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bureau of Labor Statistics Data · 2026-08 · data.bls.gov
13. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bureau of Labor Statistics Data · 2026-08 · data.bls.gov
14. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bureau of Labor Statistics Data · 2026-08 · data.bls.gov
15. Reveliolabs. Employment — Revelio Public Labor Statistics (RPLS) · 2026-09 · reveliolabs.com
16. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-09 · callings.ai
17. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-09 · callings.ai
18. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-09 · callings.ai
19. Robert Half. 2027 Administrative and customer support salary trends: The skills and roles driving growth · 2026-09 · roberthalf.com
20. Robert Half. Robert Half Real Talk: The 2026 Salary Trends You Can’t Afford to Miss · 2026-07 · roberthalf.com
21. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bureau of Labor Statistics Data · data.bls.gov
22. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bureau of Labor Statistics Data · data.bls.gov
23. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-09 · callings.ai
24. Reveliolabs. Salaries — Revelio Public Labor Statistics (RPLS) · 2026-09 · reveliolabs.com
25. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bureau of Labor Statistics Data · data.bls.gov
26. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bureau of Labor Statistics Data · data.bls.gov
27. Federal Reserve Economic Data. Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers: All Items in U.S. City Average · 2026-08 · fred.stlouisfed.org
28. Federal Reserve Economic Data. Average Hourly Earnings of All Employees, Total Private · 2026-09 · fred.stlouisfed.org
29. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bureau of Labor Statistics Data · 2026-08 · data.bls.gov
30. Reveliolabs. Mass-layoff Notices — Revelio Public Labor Statistics (RPLS) · 2026-09 · reveliolabs.com
31. Coloradopolitics. Denver mayor unveils 2027 budget after weeks of warning of tough choices · 2026-09 · coloradopolitics.com
32. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bureau of Labor Statistics Data · 2026-09 · data.bls.gov
33. Robert Half. Administrative career paths, skills and job search strategies for 2026 · 2026-06 · roberthalf.com
34. Federal Reserve Economic Data. All Employees, Private Education and Health Services · 2026-09 · fred.stlouisfed.org

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.