Is Administrative & Office Support a Good Job Market in Raleigh-Cary, NC?

Executive Verdict

Market rating: balanced | Confidence: High

Raleigh-Cary is a balanced market for Administrative & Office Support over the next 3-6 months. The metro unemployment rate was 3.5% in January 2026, total nonfarm employment was up 1.8% year over year in February, and professional and business services employment was up 2.0%, which points to a still-active local employer base for office support roles.[12][22][23] Administrative and office support remains a big local occupation family at about 11.2% of employment, or roughly 81,200 jobs.[20] But the recent posting mix still skews toward on-site, entry-level work, with hourly listings centered on about $16 to $18 and about 75% of sampled roles on-site.[15][2][21]

Best positioned: The best odds right now belong to candidates with 2–4 years of coordinator, executive-support, or office-support experience who can show customer service, data entry, communication, and comfort with modern office tools in healthcare, retail, insurance, or cross-functional coordinator settings.[6][7][1][14]

Main caution: The biggest mistake is treating this as a remote-first market; about 75% of sampled roles were on-site, less than 5% were hybrid, and remote roles were only about 20% of the local sample.[2]

What Changed Recently

• The City of Raleigh gave full-time employees an 11% general wage increase effective September 6, 2025 and moved anyone below range minimum up to the minimum of the salary band.[29]: That is a strong sign that at least one major public employer had to reset pay to stay competitive, which helps candidates targeting municipal and other structured employers.
• Raleigh-Cary total nonfarm employment reached 766.7 thousand in February 2026 and was up 1.8% year over year, while professional and business services reached 149.7 thousand and was up 2.0%.[22][23]: That is a constructive local backdrop for office support hiring, especially in business-facing environments.
• National total nonfarm payrolls were up only +0.2% year over year in March 2026, and total nonfarm hires were down -9.1% year over year in February 2026.[25][30]: Even in a healthier local market, employers are likely to hire more cautiously, add screening steps, and favor candidates who can cover multiple workflows.
• National CPI was up +3.3% year over year in March 2026 while average hourly earnings rose +3.5% year over year.[26][27]: For local admin candidates, that means pay is not automatically improving in real terms unless the role includes stronger scope or specialized tools.
• Red Storm Entertainment filed a WARN notice in Cary on March 19, 2026 affecting 105 employees after deciding to stop developing certain video games.[9]: It is not admin-specific, but it may add some white-collar competition to the local labor pool.

What This Means for You

Entry-Level Candidates

Difficulty: Moderate. Most sampled openings were entry level, about 75% of the market sample, but they are concentrated in on-site roles and often center on basic office support, customer service, and admin reliability rather than remote flexibility.[2][21][14]

Best target: Aim first at healthcare services, retail, and insurance employers that need dependable on-site coverage and customer-facing admin support.[1]

Biggest mistake: Applying like a generic office generalist with no proof of typing speed, data-entry accuracy, calendar or email handling, or customer-service volume.

Next step: Build two resume versions this month: one for front-desk or reception-style work and one for customer-support-heavy admin work, then attach a short sample showing scheduling, spreadsheet cleanup, and polished written communication.

Mid-Career Candidates

Difficulty: Competitive. Mid-level openings are a smaller share of the sample, about 15%, and employers are clearly rewarding prior coordinator or executive-support experience instead of raw tenure alone.[6][21]

Best target: Target coordinator, office-operations, executive-support, and program-support roles where you can show process ownership, meeting logistics, vendor coordination, reporting cadence, and follow-through across teams.[6][7][8]

Biggest mistake: Waiting for a perfect executive assistant title instead of applying to coordinator roles that combine admin, project, and stakeholder support.

Next step: Rewrite your resume around outcomes, not duties: travel, calendar complexity, reporting, event support, expense handling, and systems used.

Career Switchers

Difficulty: Moderate to hard. The market has accessible entry openings, but employers still reward candidates who bring directly transferable service and workflow skills, and 83% of leaders say they pay more for specialized skills.[32][21]

Best target: Switch in through customer-facing admin work, clinic or program coordination, insurance-service support, or office roles tied to a domain you already know.[7][1]

Biggest mistake: Trying to jump straight into executive support without evidence of calendar control, discretion, stakeholder follow-up, and tool fluency.

Next step: Pick one domain lane and one tool lane now, such as healthcare coordination plus scheduling or insurance service plus CRM and document handling.

Salary Reality

moderate pay broad access

Observed local postings center on about $16 to $18 per hour, with a broader 25th-75th band of about $15 to $20 per hour.[15] A separate estimated metro benchmark puts Office & Administrative Support at $47,820 annually, while national BLS figures for the broader occupation family show $50,160 mean pay, $58,730 median pay, and $46,320 at the 25th percentile.[16][17][18][19]

In plain terms, this is a moderate-pay, broad-access market: there are plenty of roles, but much of the market still sits in hourly, on-site support work rather than premium executive-support compensation.[20][15][2]

The tradeoff is that the easier-to-enter roles are also the ones most likely to be entry level, on-site, and tightly budgeted, even in a metro with low 3.5% unemployment.[12][2][21]

Best-paying path: The strongest pay tends to sit in specialized support tracks such as executive support, program coordination, insurance-related roles that value a property and casualty license, and cross-functional coordinator jobs tied to larger organizations.[6][7][5]

Caution: Do not overread high adjacent salary figures. Management and business-operations estimates in Raleigh-Cary are much higher, but they sit outside pure admin support and usually require deeper scope or a category shift.[16]

Where the Opportunities Are Concentrated

Opportunity is spread across a long tail rather than one dominant employer. In the last 90 days, the local sample showed more than 125 postings across more than 75 companies, and hiring was fragmented rather than concentrated.[31][10] The most-active industries in the sample were healthcare services (about 25%), audio engineering (about 20%), healthcare (about 15%), retail (about 15%), and insurance (about 10%).[1] That mix matters because it creates several distinct entry points. Healthcare-backed admin work is the deepest lane, while retail and insurance offer steadier customer-facing office roles, and cross-functional coordinator openings show up in employers like Wiley and Duke Health.[6][7][1] The catch is that most openings still look operational rather than strategic, so candidates who want better pay should aim for coordinator or executive-support scope instead of generic clerical titles.[6][7][15]

• Healthcare and care-adjacent administration (high): Healthcare services and healthcare together account for about 40% of the sampled local posting mix, and Duke Health is actively recruiting administrative coordination talent in the market.[7][1]
• Retail and customer-facing office support (moderate): Retail makes up about 15% of the sampled mix, which supports roles that blend customer service, front-desk coverage, and office task handling.[1][14]
• Cross-functional coordinator and executive-support tracks (moderate): Wiley's Talent & Culture Senior Coordinator opening and Duke's Program Coordinator role show that some employers want admin talent that can support projects, stakeholders, and executive workflows instead of only clerical tasks.[6][7]

Where to focus: Focus first on on-site coordinator, front-desk, and customer-support-heavy admin roles in healthcare and insurance, then stretch into cross-functional coordinator roles once your resume shows process ownership.[1][2][5]

Skills and Credentials Worth Pursuing

• Customer service (table stakes): Customer service appeared in about 20% of sampled local postings, making it one of the clearest baseline filters in this market.[14]
• Data entry accuracy and file management (table stakes): Data entry showed up in about 20% of sampled postings, while file management and attention to detail each appeared in about 15%, so employers still value reliable back-office execution.[14]
• Computer skills and office software fluency (table stakes): Computer skills appeared in about 15% of sampled local postings, which makes basic system fluency a minimum bar rather than a differentiator.[14]
• CRM systems and cloud platforms (differentiator): Administrative and customer support roles increasingly ask for CRM systems and cloud-platform fluency, which helps candidates move beyond pure clerical work.[4]
• AI-powered productivity tools (differentiator): Indeed reports that postings mentioning AI skills are growing even as broader hiring slows, so basic AI-assisted drafting, summarizing, and workflow support can help you stand out.[3]
• Executive support and project coordination (premium): Wiley is hiring a Talent & Culture Senior Coordinator and asks for 2–4 years in coordinator, executive assistant, or administrative support roles, while Duke Health is recruiting a Program Coordinator for broad operational and administrative support.[6][7]
• Property and casualty license (premium): It is the certification most often named in sampled local postings, even though it shows up in less than 5% of roles, which makes it niche but valuable in insurance-linked openings.[5]
• Healthcare coordination familiarity (differentiator): Healthcare services and healthcare together make up about 40% of the sampled local posting mix, so comfort with clinic workflows, scheduling, and multi-party coordination improves local fit.[7][1]

Adjacent Roles to Consider

• Talent & Culture Coordinator (both): Wiley is hiring a Talent & Culture Senior Coordinator in the Raleigh-Cary area and explicitly asks for 2–4 years in coordinator, executive assistant, or administrative support roles.[6]
• Patient Access or Clinic Coordinator (bridge): Healthcare services and healthcare together make up about 40% of the sampled local admin mix, and Duke Health is actively recruiting administrative coordination talent in the market.[7][1]
• Insurance Service Coordinator (both): Insurance accounts for about 10% of the sampled local mix, and a property and casualty license is the most commonly named certification in local postings, even if it appears in less than 5% of them.[1][5]
• Business Operations Coordinator (pivot): Administrative work is shifting toward more autonomous, cross-functional support, and the adjacent business and financial operations group carries a much higher local pay estimate than pure office support.[8][16]

30 / 60 / 90-Day Plan

First 30 Days

• Build three resume versions matched to the main local lanes: healthcare-backed admin, retail or customer admin, and insurance-service support.[1]
• Add proof metrics to each resume: calls handled, calendars managed, scheduling volume, data-entry accuracy, spreadsheet use, and document turnaround time.
• Create a short sample packet with one meeting agenda, one cleaned spreadsheet, and one polished email follow-up so hiring managers can see your work.
• Prioritize on-site applications inside your commute radius before spending time on remote-only searches, because about 75% of sampled openings were on-site.[2]

Days 31-60

• Finish a focused tools upgrade: Excel or Google Sheets cleanup, CRM basics, and one AI-assisted workflow for drafting, summarizing, or scheduling.[3][4]
• If insurance roles interest you, start property and casualty license prep, since it is the one certification that appears most often in local postings even though it is still a niche requirement.[5]
• If you want mid-level coordinator roles, rewrite your experience around cross-team ownership rather than tasks: meeting cadence, vendor coordination, reporting, and executive follow-through.
• Ask former managers for references that speak to discretion, reliability, and detail control, not just friendliness.

Days 61-90

• Broaden your title search to coordinator-heavy roles such as program coordinator, talent and culture coordinator, patient access or clinic coordination, insurance service coordinator, and business operations coordinator.[6][7][8][1]
• If response rates stay low, drop the generic office clerk strategy and lean into one domain lane where Raleigh has real concentration, especially healthcare or insurance.[1]
• Negotiate from scope, not title alone: ask for higher pay when a role includes multi-stakeholder coordination, reporting, or specialized systems.
• Track interviews by resume version and sector for 30 days, then double down only on the version that converts.

Methodology and Confidence

This March 2026 report was generated on April 24, 2026. Latest direct national data: March 2026. Latest direct Raleigh-Cary, NC data: April 2026.

Confidence: Overall confidence: High. Based on 9 direct local occupation data points and 28 total local evidence items with recent coverage.

Limitations

• The newest direct local occupation-specific figures in this report run through January 2026, so sudden spring shifts in Administrative & Office Support hiring may not yet show up in the official local occupation data.[12]
• Several metro and state year-over-year employment readings used here are preliminary, which means small changes should be read as directional rather than final.[34][35][22][23]
• The Callings.ai job database used for employer mix, skill patterns, work arrangement, pay bands, and posting age is a partial, deduplicated sample of online postings, so it is more reliable for direction, leading employer names, and recurring skill patterns than for exact counts or market-share estimates.[31][33][10][1][15][2][21][36][5][14][13]
• This category covers very different sub-roles, from receptionist and front-desk work to executive support and program coordination, so one pay figure can hide big differences in competition and compensation inside the same metro.[16][6][7][15]
• The March 2026 WARN notice in Cary does not identify which occupations were affected, so it should be treated as a general local risk signal rather than direct evidence about admin layoffs.[9]

References

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5. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-03 · callings.ai
6. Jobtoday. 122 Best genetic assistant Jobs in Cary, North Carolina (April 2026) | JOB TODAY · 2026-04 · jobtoday.com
7. Careers. Program Coordinator - Department of Anesthesiology in Durham, North Carolina, United States | Administrative and Support Services at Duke Health · 2026-04 · careers.dukehealth.org
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9. Commerce. Commerce - warn_notice_layoff · 2026-03 · commerce.nc.gov
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35. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bureau of Labor Statistics Data · 2026-02 · data.bls.gov
36. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-03 · callings.ai