Photo by Richard Hurd
Metro Metrics May 2026
Metro Metrics May 2026
Earlier this month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its annual Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) for 2025. This program provides employment data for every state and metropolitan area using the Standard Occupation Classification (SOC) system. This month’s edition of Metro Metrics examines these occupational trends and assesses competitive advantage across key driver industries.
Occupation Group Overview
One way to describe the makeup of a region’s workforce is using location quotients (LQ). This metric measures how concentrated an occupation is in an area compared to the national average. A score above 1 indicates a higher-than-average concentration, while a score below 1 indicates a lower concentration. In practice, LQs help identify areas of competitive advantage.
The OEWS data shows that the Madison Metro has its highest LQs in life, physical and social sciences; computer and mathematical occupations; and arts, design, entertainment, sports and media occupations. Over the past year, the concentration of life, physical and social science occupations in the region has grown significantly, from 2.17 to 2.34, while most other occupational categories remained roughly the same.
In 2025, the Madison Metro reached a record high in life, physical and social science employment (Fig. 1) with a LQ of 2.34, placing the metro fifth in the country among regions with at least 5,000 jobs in the category, just behind Research Triangle, Boulder, Boston and Trenton. There is also strong occupational diversity, with the Madison Metro having an LQ greater than 1 in 26 of the 35 detailed occupation codes within this major employment category (Fig. 2).
During the same period, the region gained jobs in personal care and service (+14.1%), management (+13.0%), and protective service occupations (+10.6%) and lost jobs in farming, fishing and forestry (-18.1%), production (-6.8%), and architecture and engineering occupations (-6.4%). Most of these trends mirror national patterns, with the one outlier being architecture and engineering occupations, where the Madison Metro fell 6.4%, while national employment increased 1.9%.
Biohealth Leader
The Madison Metro continues to excel among jobs at the intersection of health, bioscience and technology. The strength of the region’s biohealth ecosystem was one of the reasons the Economic Development Administration designated and funded the region as a Biohealth Tech Hub in 2024.
The Madison Metro has a high concentration of many important occupations in this area, including biological technicians, who help operate medical laboratories (Fig. 3). Employment in this occupation more than tripled from 390 to 1,310 between 2017 and 2025. The concentration of these workers in the Madison Metro is 7.18, more than seven times the national average. This is the fourth-highest concentration of biological technicians among metropolitan areas in the U.S., rising to the highest when looking at metros with more than 1,000 jobs in the occupation. Other leading metros in this occupation include Durham-Chapel Hill (LQ=6.74), Boston (LQ=6.05), San Diego (LQ=2.57) and San Francisco (LQ=2.53).
Medical scientists are another fast-growing occupation, with an LQ of 4.24 (Fig. 4). Like biological technicians, the number of medical scientists has more than tripled from 490 to 1920 between 2017 and 2025. Madison’s LQ ranks the metro fifth-highest among metropolitan areas, or third-highest when only including metros with more than 1,000 medical scientists.
Clinical laboratory technologists and technicians also stand out, more than doubling from 1,140 to 2,790 jobs in Madison from 2017 to 2025 (Fig. 5). With an LQ of 3.2, the Madison Metro ranks sixth nationally, or fourth among metros with more than 1,000 workers in the occupation.
Computer and Mathematical Trends
Another pillar of the Madison Metro economy is its strength in computer and mathematical occupations. This category includes computer occupations such as software developers, database administrators and information security analysts, as well as mathematical occupations such as actuaries, statisticians and data scientists.
Madison’s LQ of 1.48 ranks the metro at 18th nationally, or 10th among metros with at least 20,000 jobs in this category. Fig. 6 demonstrates the strength of Silicon Valley in this area, while showing sustained strength across several major tech hubs over the last decade.
Images
