Tampa, FL · Hiring guide
Tampa Bay hires in two big lanes: financial-services operations, and the defense work around MacDill Air Force Base, home to U.S. Central Command and U.S. Special Operations Command. Careerscape's recruiters specialize by industry and fill both for Tampa employers from a national, remote team.
Ask what is hiring in Tampa Bay and you will usually get two answers. One is the operations side of financial services: banks, brokerages and insurers that run servicing, compliance, risk, audit and technology teams here, mostly in Westshore, downtown Tampa and St. Petersburg. Raymond James is headquartered in St. Petersburg, and the Tampa Bay Economic Development Council lists Citi, JPMorgan Chase, USAA, MetLife and DTCC among the area's financial-services employers.
The other is MacDill Air Force Base, a few miles south of downtown. It is home to two four-star combatant commands, U.S. Central Command and U.S. Special Operations Command, and its April 2025 fact sheet counts 4,539 contractors on base. Behind them sits a ring of defense companies hiring analysts, IT staff, program managers and logisticians, many of whom need a clearance.
The two lanes compete for some of the same people: project managers, cybersecurity staff, systems administrators, compliance analysts. A bank and a contractor may both be after your best candidate. This guide covers what each side pays, the Florida rules that shape an offer, and how to tap the steady flow of people leaving military service at MacDill. For role-level ranges by seniority, see the 2026 Salary Guide.
By the numbers
BLS figures are for the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater metro, not seasonally adjusted. The MacDill figure comes from the base's own fact sheet.
What's hiring
Job counts are BLS figures for the metro, August 2026 (preliminary), with change from a year earlier.
Servicing, fraud, compliance, risk, audit, finance and technology teams for national banks and brokerages. Raymond James, headquartered in St. Petersburg, reported record net revenue of $14.07 billion for fiscal 2025. Citi's careers site lists Tampa openings in technology, operations, risk, finance, compliance and internal audit. Financial activities employment is roughly flat at 142,400, so experienced candidates are not scarce, but specialists still get competing offers.
MacDill hosts CENTCOM, SOCOM and 33 mission partners in all, including the Joint Communications Support Element, with the 6th Air Refueling Wing as host unit. The base reported a $4.1 billion local economic impact in 2023. The Tampa Bay EDC says nine of the top 10 U.S. defense contractors have a presence in the area and names CAE USA, Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics among leading local defense firms.
The largest supersector at 288,800 jobs, up 2.1%. It covers accounting, consulting, legal, engineering, computer services, staffing and administrative support.
Education and health services employs 264,400, up 3.8% from August 2025, the fastest growth of any major sector in the metro. It is a large source of clinical, revenue cycle and health IT openings.
Information employment fell 5.6% to 28,600 in the year to August 2026. For employers, that means more experienced developers and IT staff open to finance or defense roles than a year ago.
Construction holds 99,600 jobs (up 1.6%) and manufacturing 74,400 (up 1.4%). Project managers, estimators, quality and supply-chain staff are the usual professional hires.
Hiring from MacDill's military transition pipeline
MacDill has more than 7,600 military members, per its April 2025 fact sheet, and every year some of them leave service and look for civilian work nearby. Here is how Tampa employers tap that pipeline and what job seekers coming out of service should know.
The DoD SkillBridge program lets service members spend up to their final 180 days of service training or interning with an approved industry partner, with chain-of-command approval. They keep military pay and benefits, so the placement costs the employer nothing in wages. Companies must apply during DoD's enrollment periods and sign the partner MOU.
Under section 295.188, Florida Statutes, a private employer may adopt a policy that gives preference in hiring and promotion to honorably discharged veterans and certain spouses and surviving spouses. It is optional, and the policy must be applied uniformly.
Job seekers cannot start a clearance on their own; it begins with a conditional offer from a sponsoring employer. Someone leaving service with an active clearance is valuable because a cleared contractor can pick it up rather than start over. The employer's security officer confirms eligibility in DISS, DCSA's system of record.
Recruiters and applicant systems search civilian terms. "Logistics readiness officer" reads better as logistician or supply-chain manager; a communications NCO may be a network administrator. List certifications, systems, team size and budgets owned.
Many people leaving service want to test a civilian role before committing, and many employers want to see the work first. Contract-to-hire lets both sides do that, and it suits contractor programs whose funding is not yet settled.
Pay benchmarks
Median annual wages for the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater metro from the federal Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey. Some sit below the national median; accountants and auditors, for example, earn a $78,990 metro median against $83,680 nationally.
| Role | Median annual pay | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Software developers | $130,450 | BLS OEWS via O*NET OnLine (U.S. DOL), May 2025 |
| Information security analysts | $118,970 | BLS OEWS via O*NET OnLine (U.S. DOL), May 2025 |
| Network and computer systems administrators | $101,560 | BLS OEWS via O*NET OnLine (U.S. DOL), May 2025 |
| Project management specialists | $97,780 | BLS OEWS via O*NET OnLine (U.S. DOL), May 2025 |
| Financial and investment analysts | $79,910 | BLS OEWS via O*NET OnLine (U.S. DOL), May 2025 |
| Accountants and auditors | $78,990 | BLS OEWS via O*NET OnLine (U.S. DOL), May 2025 |
| Logisticians | $77,630 | BLS OEWS via O*NET OnLine (U.S. DOL), May 2025 |
| Compliance officers | $75,920 | BLS OEWS via O*NET OnLine (U.S. DOL), May 2025 |
| Customer service representatives | $42,660 | BLS OEWS via O*NET OnLine (U.S. DOL), May 2025 |
Medians cover all employers and experience levels, cleared and uncleared. Cleared roles are not reported separately in this survey. For ranges by seniority, see the 2026 Salary Guide.
For employers
Current as of October 2026. This is general information, not legal advice.
Since July 1, 2023, private employers with 25 or more employees must run each new hire through E-Verify within three business days of their first paid day and keep the records for three years. After three violations in 24 months, the state must fine $1,000 a day until the problem is fixed. Bills in the 2026 session to extend E-Verify to every private employer died in March 2026.
Florida's minimum wage rose to $15.00 an hour on September 30, 2026, the last of the $1 annual steps voters approved in 2020. The tipped minimum is $11.98. Annual inflation adjustments follow from here, so recheck entry-level call-center and operations pay each year.
Florida's constitution bars a personal income tax except under strict limits, so employers withhold none. It is a real selling point when recruiting finance and tech staff from New York, New Jersey or California.
The Florida CHOICE Act (sections 542.41-542.45, added in 2025) allows noncompetes and garden-leave agreements of up to four years for covered employees, generally those earning more than twice the annual mean wage of the county where the employer is based. Health care practitioners are excluded. Ask finance and sales candidates what they have signed.
Classified work happens in accredited facilities, so most cleared contractor roles at or near MacDill cannot be remote. Say so in the posting, and state the clearance level the work actually needs. Asking for TS/SCI when Secret will do shrinks your pool.
If a Tampa-based remote role is open to people in states such as California, Washington or New York that require pay ranges in postings, include one for those candidates.
Where the work is
Most finance offices cluster near the airport, downtown and across the bay in Pinellas County, while defense work centers on South Tampa. Bridges across Tampa Bay set the commute, so ask candidates which side they live on.
One of Tampa's main business districts, with more than 11 million square feet of office space. It includes Tampa International Airport, so it suits candidates who travel.
Tampa's central business district. Water Street Tampa, a 50-acre mixed-use district by Strategic Property Partners, includes office towers, hotels and apartments, and the developer is planning a second phase.
MacDill sits about four miles south-southwest of downtown, at the tip of the South Tampa peninsula. CENTCOM, SOCOM and component commands such as SOCCENT and MARCENT are headquartered on base. Cleared roles here are on-site.
The University of South Florida, whose main campus is in north Tampa, enrolled about 50,000 students in 2025-26. USF joined the Association of American Universities in 2023 and opened the Bellini College of Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity and Computing in 2025, a pipeline for cyber and data roles.
Pinellas County, across Old Tampa Bay. Raymond James is headquartered in St. Petersburg, and USF has a St. Petersburg campus. Candidates who live here often prefer jobs that keep them off the Howard Frankland Bridge.
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