Listen to article \u2022\u00a00:00 min<\/p>\n
Employers across the country now expect to pay some new hires more next year than they had previously anticipated as they compete for workers with AI skills.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s according to a new report<\/a> by staffing services and business consulting firm Robert Half, headquartered in California, which projected starting salaries across seven industries for 2027: finance and accounting, technology, marketing and creative, legal, administrative and customer support, nonclinical healthcare, and human resources. <\/p>\n The report, which Robert Half calls its \u201c2027 Salary Guide,\u201d includes insight from 2,000 surveyed workers, hiring managers, and business leaders, as well as other market insight from the firm\u2019s staffing work. It includes analysis of over 2.3 million salaries across over 425 jobs. <\/p>\n Over half the employers in the report expect to pay higher starting salaries for new hires than previously planned. <\/p>\n Brittany Nisenzon, metro market director at Robert Half, says that in the last six to nine months in Philadelphia, there has been \u201can increase in competitive hiring, and a lot of that comes down to the AI.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cCompanies are really starting to put a lot more funding and initiatives toward modernizing their technology workforce. They have to bring on skilled individuals to keep up with that,\u201d said Nisenzon. <\/p>\n Higher salaries than expected<\/p>\n In San Francisco, some 66% of employers are offering higher starting salaries than they originally planned, followed by 65% in Denver, and 64% in Seattle, the report says. <\/p>\n While AI skills are in high demand, other skills that may warrant higher pay include working with electronic medical records in nonclinical healthcare jobs, as well as influencer marketing and advanced data analytics in human resources, according to the guide.<\/p>\n Across the country, jobs that are expected to see above-average salary increases in their industry include: data scientist and cybersecurity engineer, financial analyst, marketing automation specialist, attorneys with four to nine years of experience, and medical front desk coordinator and medical biller. <\/p>\n In Philadelphia:<\/p>\n a data scientist role is projected to pay between about $146,000 and $220,000.<\/p>\n a financial analyst could make between nearly $85,000 and about $111,000.<\/p>\n a medical front desk coordinator could expect to see between about $44,250 and $52,500 in annual wages. <\/p>\n The Robert Half salary guide is not a list of available roles in Philadelphia. Robert Half benchmarked starting salaries across the country and took into account the cost of living, demand for skilled professionals, and \u201cconcentration of high paying industries\u201d across different locations. It estimated that employers in Philadelphia would have to pay 18% above the national estimate. New York City employers would need to pay 36.5% more. <\/p>\n Beyond competing for new hires, employers also should think about how to retain employees who are learning skills, says Nisenzon.<\/p>\n \u201cEmployers need to make sure they\u2019re raising their salaries for their incumbent employees because if they don\u2019t, they\u2019re going to find a job somewhere else,\u201d said Nisenzon, who adds that it\u2019s more expensive to find new talent, onboard, and train them than to give current employees \u201cappropriate salary increases.\u201d<\/p>\n What does Pennsylvania\u2019s job market look like? <\/p>\n Hiring and job growth has slowed in Pennsylvania recently, research from the Keystone Research Center indicates. The left-leaning organization published its annual State of Working Pennsylvania<\/a> report in September, highlighting a challenging job market. <\/p>\n As of December 2025, the latest data available at the time of the publication of the report, more people were unemployed than jobs available in Pennsylvania. The state had 1.2 unemployed people per job available that month, up from a ratio of on average 0.6 unemployed people per job available between May 2021 and September 2024, the Keystone Research Center indicates. <\/p>\n \u201cWorkers no longer have the confidence in the labor market to negotiate for better benefits and wages or have the belief that they\u2019ll be able to find more fulfilling employment elsewhere if they leave their current job,\u201d a research analyst at the Keystone Research Center who coauthored the report, Maisum Murtaza, said on a media call. <\/p>\n