Market Snapshot: Kansas

Market Snapshot: Kansas

50 states in 50 weeks – This series leverages our market intelligence database to bring you powerful AE industry insights. Each week, we highlight a new state in green while previously featured states fade to a lighter green. Next, let’s look at Kansas.

Kansas Economic Performance and Outlook Grade*: D+

• Economy: D+
• Population: C-
• Workforce: B
• Financial/Fiscal Health: C

* Overall grade is assigned based on a curve (relative to all states’ performances).

Location, location, location. Situated in the middle of the country, Kansas has long been a transportation, logistics, and distribution hub. The Sunflower State ranks fifth in the U.S. in number of bridges and public road miles and sixth in freight railroad miles, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation and Bureau of Transportation Statistics. The telecommunications industry is a significant employer, particularly in the Kansas City area, with companies drawn by the state’s lower cost of living and access to land and renewable energy. With an unemployment rate well below the national average, Kansas is close to full employment. Combined with an aging population and decreasing number of younger workers, there are concerns demographics could dampen future growth. The Kansas Department of Labor projects health care, transportation, and technology to be the state’s fastest-growing occupations through 2032 with the number of architecture and engineering jobs growing by a healthy 7.5%, more than double the rate of the workforce as a whole. See below for regional highlights in Kansas:

• Kansas City: A high density of tech workers and a lower cost of living is drawing significant investment to the metropolitan area. While Meta is planning a multibillion-dollar data center complex on the Missouri side of the border, Panasonic is slated to soon open a $4 billion electric vehicle battery plant, touted as the world’s largest, in DeSoto.
• Wichita: Along with manufacturing, the aerospace industry is vital to Wichita’s economy, and Boeing’s travails are expected to cause slowdowns for regional suppliers. Tech investment is on the rise, and a $300 million biomedical campus under construction is expected to create 15,000 jobs and spur downtown development. 
• Topeka: Area Development magazine ranked the Topeka metropolitan area fifth in the country for economic strength and the highest-rated metropolitan area in the state.

For sector-specific data and insights for Kansas or questions about our market intelligence and research services, call/text Rafael Barbosa at 972-266-4955 or email [email protected].

For a comprehensive outlook for 2025, you can access the 2025 AE Market Intelligence Webinar (recorded on January 28). Click here for details.