Fauquier County, Virginia

• Income premium: Households earn well above the national median, supporting strong retail and housing markets.
• Cost of living erodes income: Local prices run 8.9% above the national average, so the nominal median of $130,189 is worth $119,549 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at metro level, not county level.
• Talent advantage: Bachelor's-or-higher attainment exceeds the national average by 6.0 pts, supports knowledge-economy and tech attraction.

• Largest private-sector industry: Retail Trade employs 2,954 workers (17.3% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $39,835. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 4,415 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $4.2B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Finance and Insurance averages $126,610 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $27,579, a 4.6x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Private Households concentrates at 6.19x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 12 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 46.6% of the employment across them, the largest being construction and real estate cycle. Demand reaches this base from more than one market rather than from a single one.
• Attraction whitespace: 3 sub-sectors register LQ < 0.5 with at least 50 employed, candidates for diversification or recruitment depending on labor-market fit.

• In line with national: Home value to income ratio of 4.4x sits near the ~4.1x national average; affordability is neither a clear advantage nor a recruitment friction.
• High home ownership: 78.8% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Rent affordability gap: None of the 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom sizes sit below what a household on the median renter income of $71,175 can pay without cost burden (~$1,779/mo), and 35.3% of renter households are already cost-burdened, 17% severely so; workforce housing cost burden warrants attention.

• Succession risk is real: 25.1% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Healthy participation: 67.1% labor force participation reflects a steady, available local workforce.
• Talent pipeline: no college, university, or technical school is located in Fauquier County per the IPEDS institutional directory, so any training pipeline serving it runs through institutions outside the county.

Fauquier County shows strong potential for private households attraction, with a 6.19x concentration and 189 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 25.1% of the working-age population within 10 years of retirement age.

The concentrated base spans private households, beverage and tobacco product manufacturing, and animal production and aquaculture, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 46.6% of the employment across them, the largest being construction and real estate cycle. Supply-chain recruitment has more than one demand base to work from.