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Working here

Jobs in Northern Virginia You Can’t Do From Home (2026)The 10 biggest in-person jobs, counted rather than guessed

Fast food, stores, cleaning, nursing and security: the jobs that still mean a trip to work every day, ranked from the state’s own job counts.

Inova Fairfax Medical Campus· Gallows Road, Fairfax County

Artist’s renderings of real Northern Virginia places.

Last updated October 16, 2026Virginia Works and BLS job counts (May 2025), the BLS telework survey (September 2026), the Washington region’s State of the Commute survey (2025), base and employer reportsAbout a 10-minute read

Quick answer

The biggest jobs in Northern Virginia that can’t be done from home are fast food and counter workers (29,630 jobs), retail salespersons (29,490), janitors and cleaners (24,210), cashiers (20,120) and waiters and waitresses (19,520). Registered nurses come sixth, with 18,840; see the top 10.1 Each count is the jobs located in Northern Virginia in May 2025, from Virginia Works’ occupational estimates. Together the top 10 hold 204,780 jobs, 15.6% of the 1,313,880 jobs here.1 Federal offices are filling up again too: the share of federal workers in the Washington region who teleworked regularly fell from 79% in 2022 to 23% in 2025.6

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The in-person jobs, by the numbers

Job counts for May 2025; telework shares for the dates shown

204,780Jobs in the 10 largest in-person occupations in Northern Virginia, May 20251
15.6%Their share of all 1,313,880 jobs in Northern Virginia, May 20251
18,840Registered nurses working in Northern Virginia, No. 6 on the list, May 20251
37,170K-12 classroom teachers working in Northern Virginia, May 20251
23%Federal workers in the Washington region who teleworked regularly in spring 2025, down from 79% in early 20226
98.6%U.S. food preparation and serving workers who did not telework at all, September 20264

Northern Virginia here is the state’s Northern Virginia planning region: Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun and Prince William counties and the cities of Alexandria, Fairfax, Falls Church, Manassas and Manassas Park. Jobs are counted where the work is, not where workers live, and the counts leave out the self-employed and the military.

Top 10

The 10 biggest jobs in Northern Virginia you can’t do from home.

Ranked by the number of jobs located in Northern Virginia in May 2025. Every bar is drawn to the same scale and labeled with its count. Eight of the ten serve food, sell, clean, guard or stock; the other two, registered nurses and home health aides, are hands-on health care.

Jobs in Northern Virginia, by occupation, May 2025Employment counted where the work is, from Virginia Works’ occupational estimates (OEWS) for the Northern Virginia planning region, released June 4, 2026. Self-employed workers and the military are not counted.1
010,00020,00030,0001Fast food and counter workers29,6302Retail salespersons29,4903Janitors and cleaners24,2104Cashiers20,1205Waiters and waitresses19,5206Registered nurses18,8407Home health and personal care aides18,6208Stockers and order fillers16,0109Security guards15,11010Restaurant cooks13,230 010,00020,00030,0001Fast food and counter workers29,6302Retail salespersons29,4903Janitors and cleaners24,2104Cashiers20,1205Waiters and waitresses19,5206Registered nurses18,8407Home health and personal care aides18,6208Stockers and order fillers16,0109Security guards15,11010Restaurant cooks13,230

Occupations kept: those rated not doable from home by Dingel and Neiman (2020), plus stockers and order fillers (see below).3 Teachers are left off the strict list; see why.

#Occupation, and why it’s in personNorthern Virginia jobsWashington metro jobs
1Fast food and counter workersFood is made and handed over at the counter.29,63060,560
2Retail salespersonsStore-floor service, at Tysons and every other mall.29,49066,920
3Janitors and cleanersCleaning offices, schools and hospitals, often at night.24,21059,090
4CashiersRunning a register in grocery and retail stores.20,12050,600
5Waiters and waitressesTable service, often evenings and weekends.19,52046,160
6Registered nursesHands-on patient care in hospitals and clinics.18,84046,830
7Home health and personal care aidesHands-on care, driven from one client to the next.18,62050,450
8Stockers and order fillersStocking shelves and picking orders in stores and warehouses.16,01035,340
9Security guardsGuarding offices, federal sites and data centers.15,11040,950
10Restaurant cooksCooking on the kitchen line.13,23029,670
The 10 together204,780486,570
All jobs, every occupation1,313,8803,136,190
  • Both job columns are for May 2025: Northern Virginia from Virginia Works,1 the Washington metro from BLS.2
  • Washington metro is the Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV metro area, which adds the District, suburban Maryland and part of West Virginia. BLS counts the same 10 jobs at the top there, in a slightly different order: retail salespersons first, with 66,920 (May 2025).2
  • Just missing the cut in Northern Virginia (May 2025): hand laborers and freight movers (11,750), nursing assistants (10,490), food service supervisors (9,000), electricians (8,980) and heavy truck drivers (8,940).1
  • One judgment call: stockers and order fillers score 0.25 on the rating, not 0, because one of the four job types folded into the group, marking clerks, is rated doable from home. The other three (shelf stockers, stockroom clerks and order fillers) are not, so the group is on the list.3

How we checked

Two checks: can the job be done from home, and do people actually do it?

First, the rating. Economists Jonathan Dingel and Brent Neiman rated every occupation in the federal O*NET job database as doable from home or not, from the tasks O*NET records for it, such as working outdoors, handling and moving objects, operating vehicles or equipment, caring for others or dealing directly with the public.3 We kept the occupations rated not doable from home, matched them to Virginia Works’ May 2025 job counts for Northern Virginia and ranked them by jobs.1

Second, what workers did. Each month the Bureau of Labor Statistics asks people whether they teleworked. The jobs on our list sit in the groups where almost nobody does.4

Share of U.S. workers who did not telework at all, by occupation group, September 2026 (BLS Current Population Survey, Table A-42, not seasonally adjusted)4

  • Food preparation and serving98.6%
  • Transportation and material moving98.0%
  • Construction and extraction97.8%
  • Building and grounds cleaning and maintenance96.1%
  • Protective service93.0%
  • Healthcare support88.7%
  • Healthcare practitioners and technical87.8%
  • Education, training and library87.0%
  • All workers78.1%
  • Architecture and engineering65.7%
  • Arts, design, entertainment, sports and media55.6%
  • Computer and mathematical36.3%

National figures: the survey does not publish them for Northern Virginia. The lighter bars are groups whose jobs can often be done from home. Bars are drawn to scale, 0 to 100%.

Checked by the numbers

Reporters, the military, doctors and nurses, and engineers.

Four groups people ask about, each with its count, the date and the source. The military and health care are on site; engineers are mixed; reporters are often hybrid.

Often hybrid

Reporters: about 400 jobs

About 400news analysts, reporters and journalists working in Northern Virginia, May 20251

That is about 0.03% of the region’s 1,313,880 jobs. The state puts a relative standard error of 11.7% on the estimate, so read it as a round number. Across the whole Washington metro area, BLS counts 2,390 (May 2025), about six times as many: most of the metro’s news jobs are outside Northern Virginia.1,2

Reporting can go home. The Dingel and Neiman rating calls it doable from home, and in September 2026, 44.4% of U.S. workers in arts, design, entertainment, sports and media teleworked: 19.5% for some of their hours and 24.9% for all of them.3,4 Field reporting still means going out, so for many reporters the week is a mix of the field, the newsroom and home.

In person

The military: the base is the workplace

About 24,000military and civilian employees at the Pentagon (Defense Department page, undated, read October 2026)8

The job counts in the chart leave out the military, so uniformed jobs are not ranked there. The bases show the scale:

  • Marine Corps Base Quantico: a workforce of 28,385 in January 2024: 6,173 military, 10,998 civilians, 5,616 contractors and 5,598 students.10
  • Fort Belvoir: over 17,000 Defense Department civilians and over 1,000 contractors work on the installation (March 8, 2024).9

Living near the PentagonLiving near Fort BelvoirLiving near Quantico

In person

Doctors and nurses

18,840registered nurses working in Northern Virginia, No. 6 on the list, May 20251

Nurses: with nurse practitioners (1,490), licensed practical nurses (2,940), nurse anesthetists (60) and nurse midwives (160) added, Northern Virginia had 23,490 nursing jobs in May 2025; the Washington metro area had 58,800.1,2

Doctors: the specialties the state publishes add up to 5,120 physicians and surgeons working in Northern Virginia in May 2025, and BLS counts 16,180 in the Washington metro area. Both are undercounts: several specialties are not published for these areas, and self-employed doctors are not counted.1,2

Telehealth exists, but 87.8% of U.S. healthcare practitioners and technical workers did not telework at all in September 2026.4 Inova, the region’s largest health system, says it has 26,000 team members (undated page).11

Living near Inova Fairfax Hospital

Mixed

Engineers who work on site

14,150civil, electrical, electronics and mechanical engineers and construction managers working in Northern Virginia, May 20251

Civil engineers 4,620; electrical 2,930; electronics 1,430; mechanical 2,490; construction managers 2,680 (May 2025).1

The rating calls civil, electrical and electronics engineering doable from home and construction management not; mechanical engineering is mostly rated not doable (two of its three job types). In September 2026, 34.3% of U.S. architecture and engineering workers teleworked and 65.7% did not.3,4

The trades that build and run the data centers are on site: Northern Virginia had 8,980 electricians in May 2025, No. 14 among in-person jobs, and Loudoun Economic Development says data centers support more than 17,000 jobs in Loudoun (undated page).1,12 Engineers on classified programs work in secure rooms that can’t go home, but no public count of them by county was found.

Living near Reston Town CenterLiving near TysonsLargest employers

Teachers

Teachers: in person, but left off the strict list.

Northern Virginia had 37,170 K-12 classroom teachers in May 2025, from kindergarten through high school, including career and technical and special education teachers. Counted as one group, they would be the largest in-person group in the region. Elementary school teachers alone, 12,470, would rank No. 11.1

Why they are not in the chart: the Dingel and Neiman rating calls teaching doable from home, from the way the federal job database describes the work. The classroom is in person in practice: in September 2026, 87.0% of U.S. education, training and library workers did not telework at all, and only 3.4% teleworked all of their hours.3,4

37,170K-12 teachers, May 20251
9,790Teaching assistants, May 20251
8,340Short-term substitute teachers, May 20251
2,830School bus drivers, May 20251

All four counts are jobs in Northern Virginia. Across the whole Washington metro area, BLS counts 82,870 K-12 teachers (May 2025).2

Federal workers

Federal telework fell from 79% to 23%.

On January 20, 2025, the president signed a memorandum, “Return to In-Person Work,” telling agency heads to end remote work and bring employees back to their duty stations full time, with the exemptions they deem necessary. It ran in the Federal Register on January 28, 2025.5

A Metro train at the elevated Greensboro station in Tysons, with commuters seen from behind walking toward the station's glass canopy and an office tower behind
A Silver Line train at Greensboro station in Tysons, steps from the office towers.Artist’s rendering

Federal agency workers in the Washington region who teleworked regularly, on some or all workdays (State of the Commute survey)6

48%2019 survey, January 11 to April 13, 2019
79%2022 survey, January 6 to March 17, 2022
23%2025 survey, March 27 to June 26, 2025

What the numbers measure. Each is the share of federal agency employees answering the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments’ State of the Commute survey who said they teleworked regularly, on some or all workdays. The 2025 survey had over 7,500 answers from across the Washington region, 1,847 of them from federal workers, and its report was presented on January 27, 2026. Federal workers went from the highest telework rate of any sector to the lowest, below their own 2019 rate.6

Across all workers in the region, regular telework was 48% in 2025, down from 65% in 2022 and up from 34% in 2019, and 52% of workers did not telework on any workday in 2025.6

Fewer federal jobs, and more of them in the office: BLS counted 70,108 federal civilian jobs located in Northern Virginia in March 2026, down from 82,497 in January 2025, not counting the military.7 Nationally, 18.4% of federal workers teleworked in September 2026.4

Where the jobs are

The workplaces behind the numbers.

Big job centers where much of the work has to be done in person. Each link opens our guide to living near that workplace, with drive times, transit and home prices.

  • Hospitals

    Nurses, aides, doctors, technicians, cleaners and kitchen staff, around the clock. Inova says it has 26,000 team members across its health system (undated page).11

    Living near Inova Fairfax Hospital

  • The Pentagon

    Military and Defense Department civilians, plus the security, food service and building staff who keep it running: about 24,000 military and civilian employees (undated page).8

    Living near the Pentagon

  • Fort Belvoir

    Defense Department civilians, the military and contractors: over 17,000 civilians and over 1,000 contractors work on the installation (March 8, 2024).9

    Living near Fort Belvoir

  • Quantico

    Marines, civilians, contractors and students: a workforce of 28,385 in January 2024, the base’s own count.10

    Living near Quantico

  • Tysons

    The malls, restaurants and office towers along the Silver Line. Retail, food service, cleaning and security jobs are in person, whatever the office schedules are upstairs.

    Living near Tysons

  • Reston Town Center

    Restaurants, shops and the services that keep the office buildings running, beside the Silver Line. No public count of its in-person jobs was found.

    Living near Reston Town Center

  • Amazon HQ2

    Mostly corporate jobs, with building services, retail and food jobs around them in person. Amazon says HQ2 has created nearly 8,500 jobs (May 21, 2026).13

    Living near Amazon HQ2

  • Data Center Alley

    Electricians, HVAC technicians, security guards and technicians on site in Ashburn and across Loudoun: more than 17,000 data center jobs in the county (undated page).12

    Largest employers in Northern Virginia

From Ahmed

When the job can’t come home, the commute matters more.

A job you have to show up for raises practical questions: the shift start, the drive at that hour, the Metro or VRE stop, the parking. The living-near-work guides above put the drive times and home prices side by side.

If you are weighing a move for a job here, I can walk you through the homes and the numbers around it, in English or Arabic.

Questions

What people ask about in-person jobs in Northern Virginia.

What jobs can’t be done from home in Northern Virginia?

By number of jobs, the biggest are fast food and counter workers (29,630 jobs in May 2025), retail salespersons (29,490), janitors and cleaners (24,210), cashiers (20,120), waiters and waitresses (19,520), registered nurses (18,840), home health and personal care aides (18,620), stockers and order fillers (16,010), security guards (15,110) and restaurant cooks (13,230). Together they hold 204,780 jobs, 15.6% of the 1,313,880 jobs in Northern Virginia, in Virginia Works’ May 2025 estimates.

What is the most common job in Northern Virginia?

Software developers: 52,740 jobs in May 2025, the single largest occupation in Virginia Works’ count for Northern Virginia. It is a job that can be done from home: in September 2026, 63.7% of U.S. computer and math workers teleworked for some or all of their hours. Among jobs that can’t be done from home, fast food and counter workers lead, with 29,630.

How many nurses work in Northern Virginia?

Virginia Works counted 18,840 registered nurses working in Northern Virginia in May 2025, No. 6 among jobs that can’t be done from home. With nurse practitioners, licensed practical nurses, nurse anesthetists and nurse midwives, the total is 23,490. Across the whole Washington metro area, BLS counted 46,830 registered nurses.

How many doctors are in Northern Virginia?

The specialties Virginia Works publishes add up to 5,120 physicians and surgeons working in Northern Virginia in May 2025; BLS counts 16,180 in the Washington metro area. Both are undercounts, because several specialties are not published for these areas and self-employed doctors are not counted.

How many journalists work in Northern Virginia?

About 400 news analysts, reporters and journalists worked in Northern Virginia in May 2025, about 0.03% of the region’s jobs. The Washington metro area as a whole had 2,390. Reporting can be done from home at least part of the time, so it is not on the list of jobs that can’t be.

Do federal employees have to work in the office?

A presidential memorandum signed on January 20, 2025, “Return to In-Person Work,” told agency heads to end remote work and bring employees back to their duty stations full time, with exemptions the agencies deem necessary. In the Washington region’s State of the Commute survey, the share of federal agency workers who teleworked regularly fell from 79% in early 2022 to 23% in spring 2025.

How many people work at the Pentagon?

About 24,000 military and civilian employees, according to the Defense Department’s Military OneSource overview of the Pentagon (undated page, read October 2026).

How many teachers are in Northern Virginia?

Virginia Works counted 37,170 K-12 classroom teachers working in Northern Virginia in May 2025, from kindergarten through high school, including career and technical and special education teachers. Around them worked 9,790 teaching assistants, 8,340 short-term substitute teachers and 2,830 school bus drivers.

Which engineering jobs have to be done on site?

Construction managers (2,680 jobs in Northern Virginia in May 2025) and most mechanical engineering work (2,490 jobs) are rated as not doable from home. Civil (4,620), electrical (2,930) and electronics engineers (1,430) are rated doable from home, though site visits still pull them out. In September 2026, 65.7% of U.S. architecture and engineering workers did not telework at all.

Your next step

Starting a job you commute to? Let’s find the home that fits it.

Tell me where you will work and when you start. I answer in English or Arabic, with real numbers, not a pitch.

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Keep exploring

The counties where these workplaces are.

County guide

Fairfax County

Tysons, Reston, Inova Fairfax and Fort Belvoir.

Open the guide County guide

Arlington

HQ2, the Pentagon and Rosslyn.

Open the guide County guide

Loudoun County

Ashburn, Dulles and the data centers.

Open the guide County guide

Prince William County

Manassas and Quantico.

Open the guide Working here

Largest employers

Who employs the most people, and where the new jobs are.

Read the guide What’s being built

The big projects

HQ2, data centers, hospitals and more.

Read the guide

Keep reading