Oklahoma Cityruns on a handful of strong industries. If you’re job-hunting or weighing a move, here’s where the opportunities (and the big-name employers) are.
Top industries & employers
Aerospace, defence & federal aviation
Tinker Air Force Base, the Oklahoma City Air Logistics Complex, the FAA Mike Monroney Aeronautical Center, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, ARINC
Tinker is the largest single-site employer in Oklahoma, home to the Air Force's sustainment work on engines and heavy airframes. Separately, the FAA's Mike Monroney Aeronautical Center at Will Rogers airport is the agency's national training academy and logistics centre — meaning every US air traffic controller trains in this city. Together they make aviation the metro's most durable employment base, though most roles need US citizenship.
Energy
Devon Energy, Continental Resources, Expand Energy, OGE Energy, a deep services and midstream tier
Oklahoma City is a genuine oil and gas headquarters city rather than a field town — Devon's tower is the tallest building in the state, and the 2024 merger that created Expand Energy left another large independent producer headquartered here. The sector pays well, hires technically, and is cyclical in a way that shapes the whole local economy.
Health care & biosciences
OU Health, Integris Health, SSM Health St. Anthony, Mercy, the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation, the OKC Innovation District
OU Health runs the state's only comprehensive academic health system and its Level I trauma centre, and the Innovation District around the Health Sciences Center is the city's deliberate bet on research employment. It is the largest sector not tied to either aviation or oil.
Government & education
State of Oklahoma, City of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma City Public Schools, the University of Oklahoma (Norman and the Health Sciences Center), Oklahoma City Community College
This is the state capital, so state government is a very large and unusually stable employer. The University of Oklahoma's main campus is in Norman, twenty-five minutes south, with its medical and research campus in the city itself.
Corporate headquarters & technology
Paycom, Hobby Lobby, Love's Travel Stops, Sonic, American Fidelity, Chickasaw Nation Industries
For a metro this size, Oklahoma City punches above its weight in headquarters. Paycom is a listed payroll software company headquartered here and is the anchor of what local software employment exists — a small but real market, and the main non-energy technical employer that does not require a clearance.
Logistics, food & agriculture
Amazon fulfilment operations, the Oklahoma National Stockyards, Hobby Lobby's distribution operations, the I-35 and I-40 freight crossroads
Two interstates cross here and the distribution sector has grown accordingly. Stockyards City still runs one of the largest cattle markets in the world on the edge of downtown, which is not a heritage exhibit — it is a working market with a working economy around it.
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