Is Administrative & Office Support a Good Job Market in Salt Lake City-Murray, UT?

Executive Verdict

Market rating: balanced | Confidence: Medium

Salt Lake City is still a viable Administrative & Office Support market because this occupation is unusually large locally: 119,160 jobs, 14.6% of metro employment, and a 1.23 location quotient in May 2024.[1] The metro unemployment rate was 3.9% in January 2026, and the recent local sample shows more than 250 postings across more than 175 companies, so openings are still present.[17][20] But Utah-wide occupation signals are stable rather than expanding, with employment essentially flat year over year and active postings down 0.9% year over year in April 2026.[18][19] Expect a workable market if you are flexible on title and on-site work, not an easy market if you are holding out for remote-only or premium executive-support jobs.

Best positioned: The best odds right now go to candidates who can work on-site and match customer service, communication, time management, data entry, and front-desk or coordination needs in healthcare, healthcare services, hospitality, and general office roles.[9][12][10]

Main caution: The biggest trap is assuming this category is mostly remote executive-assistant work; about 90% of local postings are on-site, about 80% skew entry level, and named certification requirements show up in less than 5% of postings.[12][8][29]

What Changed Recently

• Salt Lake City's unemployment rate was 3.9% in January 2026, below the national unemployment rate of 4.3% in April 2026.[17][27]: That usually means the local economy is still healthy enough to support office hiring, but employers do not need to rush or overpay for broadly available admin talent.
• Utah Administrative & Office Support employment was essentially flat year over year in April 2026, and active postings were down 0.9% year over year; nationally, JOLTS job openings were down 1.2371% year over year in March 2026.[18][19][30]: The market has not fallen apart, but it is not in expansion mode, so tighter matching and faster applications matter more than mass applying.
• The recent local sample shows more than 250 postings across more than 175 companies, and hiring is fragmented rather than concentrated in one dominant employer.[20][14]: That is good for resilience because there is no single gatekeeper, but it also means you need a broader target list and title flexibility.
• Work arrangement in recent local postings was about 90% on-site, about 5% hybrid, and about 5% remote, while 88% of managers report their teams are already using AI.[12][23]: Two filters now matter immediately: being commute-ready and showing that you can use AI to speed up routine work without losing accuracy.
• Salt Lake-area expansion announcements remain supportive in the background, including Western Governors University's projected 5,000 jobs, AeroVironment's approximately 500 new jobs, and Stadler's planned 250 jobs.[31][32]: These are not direct admin openings, but bigger local operations usually create back-office, reception, scheduling, and coordination demand over time.

What This Means for You

Entry-Level Candidates

Difficulty: Moderate to high. About 80% of recent postings are entry level, which creates access, but it also means a crowded applicant pool.[8]

Best target: On-site customer-facing admin roles in healthcare, healthcare services, hospitality, and general office support, especially jobs that blend reception, scheduling, customer service, and data entry.[9][10]

Biggest mistake: Applying only to remote administrative assistant titles and ignoring receptionist, front desk, office clerk, or customer-service-heavy roles.

Next step: Build one resume for customer-service admin roles and a second for office clerk or data-entry work, then apply quickly to fresh openings because typical active postings stay live around 22 days.[11]

Mid-Career Candidates

Difficulty: Moderate. There are better-paying tracks here, but only about 10% of postings are senior and roughly 0% are lead+.[8]

Best target: Office manager, executive assistant, admin coordinator, or supervisor-track roles where you can prove calendar ownership, vendor coordination, cross-team communication, and process management; local first-line supervisors averaged $74,350.[1]

Biggest mistake: Leading with years of experience instead of showing scope, pace, stakeholder complexity, and process improvement results.

Next step: Create two short case studies that show you improved a workflow and coordinated across departments, then use them in interviews and outreach.

Career Switchers

Difficulty: Moderate if you already have customer service, scheduling, retail, hospitality, or front-desk experience; harder if you need remote-only work.

Best target: Customer service representative, receptionist, front desk, or admin coordinator roles, because customer service appears in about 50% of local postings and communication in about 40%.[10]

Biggest mistake: Talking about transferable skills in abstract terms instead of translating them into phones, scheduling, data entry, inbox handling, and customer issue resolution.

Next step: Rewrite your resume bullets into office language, then start with healthcare and hospitality employers because they make up the largest share of local posting activity.[9]

Salary Reality

moderate pay broad access

Observed local pay is moderate: the metro mean for office and administrative support was $48,930 annually and $23.53 an hour in May 2024.[1] Recent local postings center on about $44k to $51k, with hourly roles clustering around about $20 to $24 / hour.[2][3] As a directional proxy, Revelio Public Labor Statistics puts Utah's mean offered salary on new openings for this occupation at ~$48,279 in April 2026 (n=669), while the national mean offered salary on new openings was ~$54,507 (n=158,889).[4]

In this market, administrative pay is livable but not premium. Salt Lake City's cost of living index is 105.0, so the typical local admin paycheck does not stretch like it would in a lower-cost metro.[5]

The tradeoff is access versus upside: many roles accept a high school diploma or equivalent, which broadens entry, but this occupation's statewide offered pay sits well below Utah's all-occupation offered salary of ~$67,082.[6][4]

Best-paying path: The strongest pay tends to sit in supervisory and higher-scope support work. First-line supervisors of office and administrative support workers averaged $74,350 locally, and national salary guides place executive assistants around $70,250 and administrative project managers around $82,750.[1][7]

Caution: Do not overread the high end of the posting range. The broader local posted band stretches from about $38k to $82k because it mixes entry-level clerical jobs with narrower senior or specialty roles, and the national guide figures are not Salt Lake-specific medians.[2][7]

Where the Opportunities Are Concentrated

Real volume in Salt Lake City is not concentrated in classic executive-assistant seats. In the metro's occupational base, customer service representatives account for 28,650 jobs and general office clerks for 17,200, which shows how much this category is shaped by customer-facing and general office work.[1] In the recent local posting sample, healthcare accounts for about 25% of demand, hospitality about 20%, healthcare services about 20%, with smaller pockets in food & beverage and retail.[9] That mix matters because the strongest opportunities are often hybrid operating roles: front desk, scheduling, service recovery, intake, office coordination, and admin jobs that keep daily operations moving. The opportunity narrows faster at the higher end, since only about 10% of postings are senior and roughly 0% are lead+, even though the metro supports 9,700 first-line supervisors in this occupation group.[8][1] Remote-first seekers are looking at a small slice of the market because only about 5% of postings are remote.[12]

• Healthcare and healthcare-services support (high): The largest local demand pocket is in healthcare and healthcare services, where employers need front-desk, scheduling, intake, patient-facing coordination, and general office support rather than specialized billing or records work.[9]
• Hospitality and guest-facing office support (high): Hotels, food service, and multi-site service operators create demand for reception, service coordination, shift support, and customer-resolution-heavy admin jobs.[9]
• General office clerk and customer-service hybrid roles (high): This is the broadest landing zone for candidates who can handle phones, data entry, follow-up, and daily office workflow across many employer types.[1][10]
• Senior executive support and supervision (limited): These roles pay better, but they are a smaller slice of current postings and usually require clearer proof of scope, discretion, and process ownership.[8][1]

Where to focus: Focus first on on-site healthcare, hospitality, and general office roles that combine customer service with scheduling or data entry; that is where the metro's real volume sits.[9][12][10]

Skills and Credentials Worth Pursuing

• Customer service (table stakes): Customer service appears in about 50% of local postings, making it the clearest baseline requirement in this market.[10]
• Written and verbal communication (table stakes): Communication appears in about 40% of local postings, and national posting analysis ranks written and verbal communication as the top in-demand skill for administrative professionals.[10][22]
• Time management and multitasking (table stakes): Time management shows up in about 20% of local postings and multitasking in about 15%, which fits a market dominated by on-site coordination work.[10][12]
• Data entry accuracy and attention to detail (differentiator): Data entry and attention to detail each appear in about 15% of local postings, so candidates who can show both speed and accuracy stand out from generic applicants.[10]
• Healthcare and hospitality workflow familiarity (differentiator): Healthcare, healthcare services, and hospitality together account for most recent local posting activity, so familiarity with high-volume scheduling, front desk flow, and customer handling is directly useful.[9]
• AI copilots and workflow automation tools (differentiator): Robert Half reports 88% of managers say their teams are already using AI, and common tools for administrative professionals now include Microsoft Copilot, ChatGPT or Claude, Power Automate, Zapier, and Make.[23][24]
• Prompt engineering (differentiator): Prompt engineering is now described as an emerging valuable skill for administrative professionals because it improves the usefulness and accuracy of AI-generated work.[25]
• Judgment, creativity, and human communication (premium): Administrative assistants score 70/100 on AI exposure, and current career guidance emphasizes judgment, creativity, and communication as the durable edge that AI does not replace well.[16][26]

Adjacent Roles to Consider

• Patient access representative (both): It uses scheduling, check-in, phones, customer handling, and front-desk coordination, but sits in healthcare support administration rather than general office support.
• Accounts payable specialist (pivot): It builds naturally from data entry, detail orientation, document handling, and vendor follow-up.
• Recruiting coordinator (both): The job relies on scheduling, candidate communication, calendar management, and cross-team follow-up.
• Logistics coordinator (pivot): It uses the same core strengths as office support: dispatching, scheduling, vendor communication, and exception handling.

30 / 60 / 90-Day Plan

First 30 Days

• Build three resume versions: one for customer-service-heavy admin roles, one for general office and data entry, and one for higher-scope executive or office manager work.
• Move healthcare, healthcare services, and hospitality employers to the top of your list because they make up the largest share of recent local posting activity.[9]
• Add a visible skills block with customer service, communication, time management, data entry, and attention to detail because those are the most repeated local asks.[10]
• Apply within the first week of a strong-fit posting; active openings in this market tend to stay live around 22 days, so late applications lose ground.[11]

Days 31-60

• Create two work samples: one meeting, travel, and calendar coordination sample, and one process sample that shows how you reduced inbox, data-entry, or follow-up friction.
• Learn one AI stack for admin work, such as Microsoft Copilot or ChatGPT plus Power Automate, Zapier, or Make, and be ready to explain one workflow you improved with it.[23][24]
• If response rates are weak, widen your title search to receptionist, front desk, customer service representative, office clerk, and admin coordinator instead of searching only administrative assistant.
• Build a targeted employer list led by named active employers such as Domino's Pizza and R1 RCM Inc., then add hospitals, clinics, hotels, and multi-site operators.[21][9]

Days 61-90

• If you are still stuck at entry level, add adjacent paths such as patient access, recruiting coordinator, accounts payable, or logistics coordinator to widen your landing zone.
• Push for scope, not just title: volunteer for calendars, vendor follow-up, reporting, onboarding logistics, or process cleanup so you can move toward office manager or supervisor-track work.
• Use interview stories that prove judgment, stakeholder communication, and AI-assisted productivity, not just typing speed or clerical reliability.
• Reset your filters if needed: remote-only criteria leaves you chasing about 5% of the local market.[12]

Methodology and Confidence

This April 2026 report was generated on May 10, 2026. Latest direct national data: May 2026. Latest direct Salt Lake City-Murray, UT data: April 2026.

Confidence: Overall confidence: Medium. Local occupation data is solid, but some near-term hiring and pay conclusions rely on broader proxy signals and category-level inference.

Limitations

• The strongest metro wage and employment benchmarks in this report come from the May 2024 local occupation release, so actual April 2026 pay conditions may be somewhat different from the published Salt Lake City averages.[1]
• The latest metro labor-market temperature signal in the bundle is the Salt Lake City unemployment rate for January 2026, so this report blends older local indicators with newer state and national readings.[17]
• Statewide labor data from Revelio Public Labor Statistics was used as a proxy where metro-level occupation trend data is not published, which means the flat employment and slightly softer postings signals describe Utah overall rather than Salt Lake City alone.[18][19][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 than exact counts or exact shares.[20][21][9][10]
• This category bundles very different jobs, from customer service representatives and general office clerks to supervisors, so wide pay ranges and uneven demand by title should be expected when comparing entry-level clerical work with higher-scope support roles.[1][2][3]

References

1. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Occupational Employment and Wages in Salt Lake City-Murray — May 2024 · 2025-07 · bls.gov
2. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-04 · callings.ai
3. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-04 · callings.ai
4. Reveliolabs. Salaries - Revelio Public Labor Statistics (RPLS) · 2026-04 · reveliolabs.com
5. Redfin. Cost of Living in Salt Lake City, UT 2026 | Redfin · 2026-05 · redfin.com
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. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-04 · callings.ai
9. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-04 · callings.ai
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. Reveliolabs. Mass-layoff Notices - Revelio Public Labor Statistics (RPLS) · 2026-03 · reveliolabs.com
14. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-04 · callings.ai
15. Sqmagazine. Sqmagazine - ai_automation_share_of_tasks_goldman_sachs · 2026-05 · sqmagazine.co.uk
16. Aicareerindex. roles | AI Career Index · 2024-05 · aicareerindex.com
17. Federal Reserve Economic Data. Feb 2026, Unemployment Rate by Metropolitan Statistical Area, Monthly, Not Seasonally Adjusted: Utah | FRED | St. Louis Fed · 2026-04 · fred.stlouisfed.org
18. Reveliolabs. Employment - Revelio Public Labor Statistics (RPLS) · 2026-04 · reveliolabs.com
19. Reveliolabs. Job Openings - Revelio Public Labor Statistics (RPLS) · 2026-04 · reveliolabs.com
20. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-04 · callings.ai
21. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-04 · callings.ai
22. Daybook. Administrative Salary Data | Daybook · 2026-01 · daybook.com
23. Robert Half. AI for administrative assistants: Tools, skills and career growth tips · 2026-04 · roberthalf.com
24. Sintra. 9 Best AI Executive Assistant Tools in 2026 · 2024-05 · sintra.ai
25. Medium. Medium: Read and write stories. · 2026-05 · medium.com
26. Officedynamics. The Future of Administrative Professionals: AI and What’s Next in 2026 · 2026-01 · officedynamics.com
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 · 2026-04 · data.bls.gov
29. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-04 · callings.ai
30. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bureau of Labor Statistics Data · 2026-03 · data.bls.gov
31. Business. Business - western_governors_university_expansion_utah · 2026-03 · business.utah.gov
32. Areadevelopment. AeroVironment Plans Salt Lake City, Utah, Manufacturing Operations - Area Development · 2025-09 · areadevelopment.com