Is Administrative & Office Support a Good Job Market in Kansas City, MO-KS?

Executive Verdict

Market rating: competitive | Confidence: Medium

Kansas City is still a workable market for Administrative & Office Support, but it is not an easy one. Office and administrative support remains the metro's largest occupational family at 11.9% of total employment, Kansas City unemployment was 4.2% in February 2026, and more than 450 relevant postings were observed across more than 300 companies over the last 90 days.[21][29][24] The catch is that Missouri postings for this occupation were down 1.8% year over year in April 2026, most local opportunities are on-site, and an Oracle layoff affecting 539 workers may add extra competition for office-based roles.[23][12][17] If you can show customer-facing admin skills, Microsoft 365 fluency, and willingness to work on-site, you still have a credible shot.[11][13]

Best positioned: Candidates targeting on-site front-desk, coordinator, and admin roles in healthcare, hospitality, education, or lending have the best odds because those industries make up most local posting activity and hiring is fragmented across many employers rather than concentrated in one dominant buyer.[10][19]

Main caution: The biggest mistake is treating this like a remote-friendly general office market, because the local sample is about 95% on-site with only about 5% hybrid and about 5% remote listings.[12]

What Changed Recently

• Kansas City's unemployment rate was 4.2% in February 2026, close to the U.S. unemployment rate of 4.3% in April 2026.[29][26]: That points to a market that is still functioning, but not one where employers need to lower standards or speed up hiring for most office roles.
• Missouri employment in Administrative & Office Support was essentially flat year over year in April 2026, while active postings for the category were down 1.8% year over year.[22][23]: This usually means replacement hiring is still happening, but net new demand is softer and generic applications are less effective.
• Kansas City still showed more than 450 postings across more than 300 companies over the last 90 days, and the employer mix was fragmented rather than dominated by one firm.[24][19]: You are not relying on one big employer, but you do need a broader, more targeted application list.
• Oracle America published a Kansas City WARN notice affecting 539 employees, with layoffs scheduled from May 26, 2026 through June 1, 2026.[17]: Even though the notice is not occupation-specific, it can raise competition for office-based jobs in the metro over the next few months.

What This Means for You

Entry-Level Candidates

Difficulty: Moderate to high.

Best target: Target on-site front-desk, admin coordinator, and customer-facing office roles in healthcare, hospitality, education, and lending, where local demand is concentrated and customer service is the clearest screen-in skill.[10][11][12]

Biggest mistake: Filtering for remote first or assuming every opening requires a bachelor's degree, because the market is overwhelmingly on-site and many postings that state education requirements stop at high school.[12][6]

Next step: Build a one-page resume that shows customer service, data entry accuracy, calendar or scheduling work, and Microsoft Office use in the first half of the page.[11]

Mid-Career Candidates

Difficulty: Moderate.

Best target: Aim for roles that bundle scheduling, reporting, vendor coordination, and executive or team support rather than pure reception, because employers are rewarding more autonomous, cross-functional admin work.[9][13]

Biggest mistake: Applying as a generic administrative assistant without showing process ownership, software fluency, and measurable outcomes.

Next step: Create two resume versions: one for executive-support-heavy openings and one for office-operations or coordinator openings, then anchor your pay ask to scope rather than title alone.[1][7][8]

Career Switchers

Difficulty: Moderate if you already have strong service experience.

Best target: If you are coming from retail, hospitality, branch banking, or call-center work, target office roles that emphasize customer service and communication instead of back-office-only work.[11]

Biggest mistake: Leaning on pure data-entry positioning, because repetitive-task roles face more automation pressure than coordination-heavy roles.[14]

Next step: Translate past work into admin language: appointment scheduling, issue resolution, shared inbox handling, record accuracy, and Microsoft 365, Zoom, or Slack use.[13]

Salary Reality

moderate pay broad access

Observed local posting data puts the center of advertised annual pay at about $45k to $59k, with a broader 25th-75th band of about $39k to $75k.[1] Hourly-paid postings center on about $17 to $20 / hour.[2] As a proxy check, Robert Half estimates Kansas City administrative assistants at about $43,470/year at the 25th percentile and $54,596/year at the 75th percentile, while mean offered salary on new openings for the broader category in Missouri was about $49,864 in April 2026 (n=1,572).[3][4]

This is a moderate-pay market: solid for steady office work, but not especially lucrative versus Missouri's mean offered salary across all occupations of about $72,557.[4]

Access is relatively broad because many postings are entry-level and many of the ones that state education requirements stop at high school, but that same accessibility keeps competition high and slows pay progression.[5][6]

Best-paying path: The strongest upside tends to sit in executive-assistant and office-manager tracks, where national salary guides put pay around $70,250 and $66,000 respectively, especially when the role includes cross-functional ownership rather than basic reception tasks.[7][8][9]

Caution: Do not overread top-end salary figures, because national salary-guide numbers are not Kansas City offer data and local posted ranges cover a wide mix from front desk to higher-touch executive support.[1][7][8]

Where the Opportunities Are Concentrated

Real opportunity in Kansas City is concentrated in service-heavy environments rather than one classic corporate-office cluster. In the local posting sample, healthcare accounts for about 30% of activity and healthcare services another about 20%, followed by hospitality and education at about 15% each and financial services at about 10%.[10] For this category, that points toward front desk, scheduling, office coordination, and customer-contact work rather than narrower specialty functions that belong in other admin categories. The employer base is broad and fragmented. Active names include QC Holdings, Inc., Lendnation, Kansashealthsystem, Livewell Animal Hospital, LLC, KMG Hotels, Amerco Inc, Domino's Pizza, and Marquee Hospitality LLC., and the typical active posting has been open around 24 days.[15][16] That means the best strategy is to tailor by sector workflow and move quickly, not to wait for one marquee employer to open a large batch of roles.

• Healthcare front desk and coordination (high): This is the deepest pool locally, with healthcare at about 30% of postings and healthcare services at about 20%.[10]
• Hospitality and property-support offices (moderate): Hospitality represents about 15% of local activity, with active employers including KMG Hotels and Marquee Hospitality LLC.[10][15]
• Education and program-office support (moderate): Education makes up about 15% of local posting activity and tends to reward strong communication, scheduling, and stakeholder follow-through.[10][11]
• Lending and financial-services administration (moderate): Financial services account for about 10% of local activity, and active employers include QC Holdings, Inc. and Lendnation.[10][15]

Where to focus: Focus first on on-site coordinator, front-desk, and scheduling roles in healthcare, education, and lending where customer service, communication, and office-software fluency matter more than formal credentials.[10][6][11]

Skills and Credentials Worth Pursuing

• Customer service (table stakes): Customer service appears in about 45% of local postings, making it the clearest screen-in skill across front desk and coordinator work.[11]
• Communication (table stakes): Communication appears in about 30% of local postings, with related communication-skills language in about 15%.[11]
• Microsoft Office / Microsoft 365 (table stakes): Microsoft Office shows up in local postings, and national admin guidance highlights Microsoft 365 as a core platform alongside Zoom, Slack, and AI-scheduling tools.[11][13]
• Data entry and attention to detail (table stakes): Both data entry and attention to detail show up in about 15% of local postings, but repetitive-task work is also the part of admin most exposed to AI displacement.[11][14]
• Time management and problem solving (differentiator): Each appears in about 15% of local postings and becomes more important in multi-tasked on-site roles.[11]
• Digital fluency and AI-enabled scheduling tools (premium): Employers increasingly value digital fluency, and admin roles are being augmented by AI tools rather than protected from them.[7][14][13]
• Project management certification (differentiator): It appears in less than 5% of local postings, so it is not table stakes, but it can help candidates move toward coordinator or project-support work.[25]

Adjacent Roles to Consider

• Project Coordinator (both): A reasonable step up from admin work because the market shows occasional project management credential demand and stronger value on cross-functional support.[25][9]
• Customer Success Specialist (both): Customer service is the top local skill signal, so service-heavy admin experience transfers well.[11]
• Program Coordinator (bridge): Education accounts for about 15% of local posting activity, and coordination-heavy admin work often overlaps with program support.[10][11]
• Sales Support Specialist (pivot): Financial services make up about 10% of local admin demand, and active local employers include QC Holdings, Inc. and Lendnation.[10][15]

30 / 60 / 90-Day Plan

First 30 Days

• Build three resume versions tied to real local demand: healthcare front desk or scheduling, hospitality or education office coordination, and lending or customer-facing admin.[10][11]
• Change your search filters so remote-only is a side search, not the main one, because the local mix is about 95% on-site with only about 5% hybrid and about 5% remote.[12]
• Add a visible software line near the top of your resume with Microsoft Office or Microsoft 365, Zoom, Slack, and any calendar or AI-scheduling tools you have used.[13]
• Apply early when possible, because the typical active posting has been open around 24 days.[16]

Days 31-60

• Create one proof-of-skill portfolio item such as a calendar-management workflow, meeting-logistics checklist, travel coordination sheet, or shared inbox SOP using Microsoft 365 tools.[13]
• If you lack direct office experience, lean into entry-heavy roles and do not screen yourself out too early, because about 80% of local postings skew entry level and many of the postings that state education requirements stop at high school.[5][6]
• If you want better progression, take a lightweight project-management course or entry certification instead of collecting generic admin certificates, because formal certification demand is sparse and project management is the main named credential signal.[25]
• Build a target-employer list from the fragmented local field instead of over-focusing on one company, including QC Holdings, Inc., Lendnation, Kansashealthsystem, Livewell Animal Hospital, LLC, and KMG Hotels.[15][19]

Days 61-90

• If interviews stall, shift roughly half of your applications into adjacent roles such as Project Coordinator, Customer Success Specialist, Program Coordinator, or Sales Support Specialist.
• Separate your salary asks by scope: stay near the general local admin band for standard support roles, and reserve higher asks for executive-support or office-manager-style jobs with broader ownership.[1][7][8]
• Deprioritize pure data-entry applications unless they also include customer contact, scheduling, or process ownership, because repetitive-task exposure is higher as AI tools spread.[14]
• If you need employer sponsorship, widen your search beyond this category or metro because less than 5% of local postings that state a policy mention visa sponsorship.[20]

Methodology and Confidence

This April 2026 report was generated on May 10, 2026. Latest direct national data: April 2026. Latest direct Kansas City, MO-KS data: April 2026.

Confidence: Overall confidence: Medium. Based on 3 local evidence items and 2 proxy signals. Some conclusions require category-level inference.

Limitations

• The strongest local benchmark for how big this field is in Kansas City comes from the May 2024 occupational wage release, so the exact mix of office-support roles may have shifted since then.[21]
• Statewide Missouri occupation data was used as a proxy for hiring direction where Kansas City-specific monthly occupation series is not published, so Missouri trends may not perfectly match conditions across the full MO-KS metro.[22][23][4]
• The Callings.ai job database is a partial, deduplicated sample of online postings, so direction of demand, leading employer names, and skill patterns are more reliable here than exact posting counts, employer shares, or pay distributions.[24][15][10][1][11]
• Pay is uneven across sub-roles: the local posted band for the full category centers on about $45k to $59k, while one salary guide estimates Kansas City administrative assistants at about $43,470 to $54,596, so any single pay number should be treated as guidance rather than a guaranteed offer.[1][3]
• The Oracle WARN notice is a real local risk signal, but it does not say how many affected workers were in administrative roles, so it should be read as possible competition pressure in the broader office labor pool rather than a direct count of admin layoffs.[17]

References

1. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-04 · callings.ai
2. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-04 · callings.ai
3. Robert Half. Staffing, Recruitment & Job Search · 2026-05 · roberthalf.com
4. Reveliolabs. Salaries - Revelio Public Labor Statistics (RPLS) · 2026-04 · reveliolabs.com
5. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-04 · callings.ai
6. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-04 · callings.ai
7. Robert Half. 2026 Administrative and Customer Support Salary Trends: The Skills and Roles Driving Growth · 2025-11 · roberthalf.com
8. Bluesignal. 2026 Compensation Trends and Salary Guide - Blue Signal Search · 2025-11 · bluesignal.com
9. Lhh. Lhh - role_evolution · 2025-10 · lhh.com
10. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-04 · callings.ai
11. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-04 · callings.ai
12. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-04 · callings.ai
13. Robert Half. 2026 Administrative and Customer Service Salaries and Compensation Trends · 2025-10 · roberthalf.com
14. Indeed Hiring Lab. 2026 Best Jobs Methodology: From Good to Great - Indeed Hiring Lab · 2026-01 · hiringlab.org
15. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-04 · callings.ai
16. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-04 · callings.ai
17. Content. Content - warn_notice_layoff · 2026-03 · content.govdelivery.com
18. Reveliolabs. Mass-layoff Notices - Revelio Public Labor Statistics (RPLS) · 2026-04 · reveliolabs.com
19. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-04 · callings.ai
20. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-04 · callings.ai
21. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Occupational Employment and Wages in Kansas City — May 2024 · 2025-06 · bls.gov
22. Reveliolabs. Employment - Revelio Public Labor Statistics (RPLS) · 2026-04 · reveliolabs.com
23. Reveliolabs. Job Openings - Revelio Public Labor Statistics (RPLS) · 2026-04 · reveliolabs.com
24. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-04 · callings.ai
25. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-04 · callings.ai
26. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bureau of Labor Statistics Data · 2026-04 · data.bls.gov
27. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bureau of Labor Statistics Data · 2026-04 · data.bls.gov
28. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bureau of Labor Statistics Data · 2026-03 · data.bls.gov
29. Federal Reserve Economic Data. Unemployment Rate in Kansas City, MO-KS (MSA) · 2026-04 · fred.stlouisfed.org