Ask anyone who grew up vacationing on the Grand Strand and they’ll tell you the same story: the drive down Highway 17 keeps looking different. New medical campuses where pine stands used to be. Cranes over Carolina Forest. License plates from Ohio and New York that never went home after Labor Day. The place people came to escape their working lives has quietly become a place people come to build them.

Now the data has caught up with the anecdotes. LinkedIn has named Myrtle Beach to its 2026 Cities on the Rise list, ranking the region No. 16 among the 25 fastest-growing U.S. metros for jobs and career growth. It’s the second consecutive year the Grand Strand has made the cut — and the company it keeps on the list says plenty about where this coastline is headed.

For the millions who know Myrtle Beach as 60 miles of vacation coastline, the ranking is worth a closer look. The same momentum drawing new careers and residents here is reshaping the visitor experience too — more flights, more restaurants, more to do in every season. Here’s what the recognition actually measures, what’s fueling it, and why the smartest way to understand the Grand Strand’s rise is still a week at the beach.

The Ranking: No. 16 of 25, Two Years Running

LinkedIn’s Cities on the Rise report spotlights emerging metropolitan areas where hiring is accelerating, employers are expanding, and professionals are actively choosing to relocate. Myrtle Beach landed at No. 16 on the 2026 edition, sharing the list with a striking cluster of Carolinas and Southeast neighbors — a regional pattern that tells its own story about where American career momentum is flowing.

Fort Wayne, Indiana and other rising mid-sized metros round out a list that shares a theme: career opportunity is expanding well beyond the traditional big-city hubs, and quality of life is doing much of the recruiting.

How LinkedIn Builds the List

This isn’t a lifestyle listicle — it’s built on labor market data at a scale few organizations can match. LinkedIn analyzed its proprietary workforce data from March 2024 through February 2026, measuring year-over-year growth in hiring and job creation across U.S. metros while tracking where professionals are actually moving. To qualify, a metro had to perform in the top 50th percentile or above across all U.S. metropolitan areas and show positive net migration over the past year — in plain terms, more talent arriving than leaving.

The report’s framing captures why lists like this resonate right now: LinkedIn’s own survey data shows two-thirds of professionals say they work to live rather than the other way around, weighing career ambition against overall quality of life. By that math, a metro that pairs job growth with a beach has a structural advantage — and the Grand Strand is exhibit A.

What’s Driving Myrtle Beach’s Rise

LinkedIn’s write-up of the region named three engines working in tandem. The first is the familiar one: sustained tourism growth, the industry that built the Grand Strand and still anchors it. The second is healthcare, where investment is scaling fast — including a commitment of roughly $350 million to expand Grand Strand healthcare infrastructure, the kind of spending that creates thousands of durable, year-round positions from nursing to administration to construction.

The third engine is demographic. The Myrtle Beach area holds the distinction of being the nation’s fastest-growing metro for retirees, with residents 65 and older now accounting for about a quarter of the region’s roughly 413,000 people. That wave of arrivals feeds everything else — demand for healthcare, housing, dining, services, and the professionals to provide them. Growth compounding growth.

Layered underneath the three headline drivers sits the quieter appeal that vacationers already understand: a coastal setting, a cost of living below the national average, and a climate that delivers beach weather deep into what the rest of the country calls fall.

Beyond Tourism: A Year-Round Economy Takes Shape

The deeper story behind the ranking is diversification. Tourism remains the economic foundation — nobody here is apologizing for that — but continued investment in healthcare, technology, entrepreneurship, education, and business development is building an economy that supports careers in every month of the calendar, not just the hundred days of summer.

The people arriving reflect that shift: professionals recruited by expanding employers, entrepreneurs opening year-round businesses, remote workers who realized their home office could have an ocean view, and retirees beginning encore careers and community ventures. New infrastructure, housing, and commercial development are rising to meet them — from the road projects reshaping how the county moves, like the recently approved Highway 31 extension to the Highway 17 Bypass, to new nonstop routes landing at Myrtle Beach International.

Matt Pivarnik, CEO of the Greater Myrtle Beach Collaborative, said the LinkedIn recognition confirms what businesses, residents, and investors have been watching unfold on the ground — a region evolving into a place where people can build rewarding careers while enjoying an exceptional quality of life, with the community committed to sustaining that momentum.

A Growing Shelf of National Accolades

The LinkedIn nod joins a run of national recognition that keeps landing on the Grand Strand’s doorstep. Earlier in 2026, Resonance Consultancy named Myrtle Beach the No. 5 Best Small City in America, scoring the destination highly for livability and desirability. In recent years the area has repeatedly topped fastest-growing-city rankings, driven by one of the highest move-in ratios of any American city — a steady stream of newcomers choosing this coastline over bigger, pricier metros.

Each list measures something slightly different, but together they sketch the same picture: a mid-sized coastal region hitting its stride, attractive to visitors and residents for many of the same reasons.

What Growth Means for Visitors

A rising metro makes for a better vacation, and the dividends show up all along the Strand. Air access keeps improving as carriers add nonstop routes to serve the growing population. The dining scene deepens every year, because year-round residents keep restaurants thriving past Labor Day — a rising tide for everything in our guide to things to do in Myrtle Beach. Entertainment calendars stretch across all four seasons, easy to track on the Myrtle Beach events calendar. And expanded healthcare infrastructure quietly matters to traveling families and long-stay snowbirds alike: world-class care minutes from the beach chair is a real vacation amenity.

Growth also explains why the shoulder seasons keep getting better. A region with a year-round economy keeps its restaurants open, its festivals running, and its attractions staffed in October and February — precisely when rental rates are at their friendliest.

The Best Scouting Trip Is a Beach Week

Here’s the pattern locals see over and over: today’s vacationer is tomorrow’s resident. A meaningful share of the professionals and retirees now fueling the region’s rankings first fell for this coast the same way everyone does — a rented beach house, a week of salt air, a sunset walk that made the drive home feel like leaving something behind.

North Myrtle Beach makes an ideal base for that kind of trip, whether you’re purely vacationing or quietly evaluating. Each of the four beach sections has its own personality worth sampling: Cherry Grove Beach with its fishing pier and tidal creek calm at the north end, Ocean Drive with the Main Street shag scene at the town’s heart, and the wide, family-favorite sands of Crescent Beach and Windy Hill to the south. A week in an oceanfront home rental lets a multi-generational crew test-drive the lifestyle together, while an oceanfront condo suits the couple weighing whether those Zoom calls might sound better with waves in the background.

Frequently Asked Questions

Come See What the Rankings Keep Noticing

Sources: Ranking and methodology reported by LinkedIn News (2026 Cities on the Rise), with additional reporting from The Post and Courier, The Sun News, and the Greater Myrtle Beach Collaborative, July–August 2026. Population figures reflect recent U.S. Census Bureau estimates for the Myrtle Beach metropolitan area.