Roanoke city, Virginia

• Income gap: Households earn meaningfully less than the national median, which directly affects retail demand, housing absorption, and tax base.
• Below the state median: Median household income runs $37,792 (40.6%) under the Virginia median, so statewide income averages overstate local household buying power.
• Cost of living stretches income further: Local prices run 6.4% below the national average, so the nominal median of $55,378 is worth $59,165 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at metro level, not county level.
• Elevated poverty: At 18.3%, the rate is in economically distressed territory and supports federal funding narratives (CDFI, NMTC, EDA).
• Talent gap: Bachelor's-or-higher attainment trails the national average by 5.7 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.

• Largest private-sector industry: Health Care and Social Assistance employs 13,746 workers (27.7% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $78,126. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 8,636 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $10.1B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services averages $89,335 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $25,218, a 3.5x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Heavy and Civil Engineering Construction concentrates at 3.92x the national norm, strong concentration that anchors the local economy and supports supply-chain attraction strategy.
• Cluster depth: 5 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 49.5% of the employment across them, the largest being business and professional services. Demand reaches this base from more than one market rather than from a single one.
• Attraction whitespace: 6 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 3.4x sits near the ~4.1x national average; affordability is neither a clear advantage nor a recruitment friction.
• Elevated vacancy: 11.3% of housing units are vacant, above the Virginia rate of 8.7%, and up from 11.2% in 2019.
• Vacancy composition: the largest vacancy category is other vacant at 46.9% of vacant units, with seasonal and recreational use at 8.3%.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 36.2% of the vacant stock, or 4.1% of all housing units against the 11.3% headline vacancy rate. That is the figure to plan an incoming employer's housing against, and the gap between the two is the redevelopment and conversion opportunity.
• Affordable rent tiers: 1 of 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom sizes sit below what a household on the median renter income of $40,701 can pay without cost burden (~$1,018/mo), and 41.9% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Healthy participation: 62.1% labor force participation reflects a steady, available local workforce.
• Short commutes: 19.0-minute mean commute is a quality-of-life and labor-access advantage worth surfacing for site selectors.
• Talent pipeline: 2 institutions in Roanoke city award 1,231 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Roanoke city shows meaningful potential for heavy and civil engineering construction attraction, with a 3.92x concentration and 1,929 jobs in this sub-sector.

The concentrated base spans heavy and civil engineering construction, management of companies and enterprises, and transit and ground passenger transportation, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 49.5% of the employment across them, the largest being business and professional services. Supply-chain recruitment has more than one demand base to work from.