Major Employers in Orlando: The 2025 Principal Employers List

Walt Disney World Resort is the largest employer in the Orlando metro with 75,000 employees, followed by AdventHealth System at 37,672 and Universal Orlando Resort at 26,800, on the city's 2025 Principal Employers schedule (City of Orlando ACFR 2025).

The schedule ranks the ten largest employers across the four-county Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford metro, which the report defines as Orange, Seminole, Osceola and Lake counties, and shows each one's share of 1,539,334 total metro jobs (City of Orlando ACFR 2025). Two Leisure and Hospitality employers and two Healthcare employers hold the first four places, and Lockheed Martin is the only Aerospace/Defense entry in the top ten.

The schedule assigns 1,327,760 jobs, 86.26 percent of metro employment, to Other Employers outside the top ten (City of Orlando ACFR 2025).

The schedule's own source notes credit the 2025 figures to the Orlando Business Journal and the 2016 figures to the Metro Orlando Economic Development Commission (City of Orlando ACFR 2025).

The two columns also disagree on who belongs in the top ten. Orange County Public Schools ranked second on the 2016 schedule with 23,929 employees, Orange County Government fifth with 19,783 and Orlando International Airport MCO sixth with 18,000, yet none of the three appears in the 2025 top ten (City of Orlando ACFR 2025). OCPS says on its own site that it has over 23,000 professionals and 208 schools (Orange County Public Schools). The ACFR gives no reason for the omission, so the two figures are shown here side by side rather than reconciled.

Employer counts also vary by definition. UCF lists 13,708 employees on its 2025-2026 facts page, a total that includes temporary staff and student workers, and 9,733 full-time equivalents; the city schedule shows 13,004 (UCF Facts 2025-2026). The schedule also lists Publix Supermarkets, in its 2016 column, under the type of business Healthcare (City of Orlando ACFR 2025).

For any single Orlando employer, the number on this page is the one in the city's official schedule; where an employer's own figure differs, both are shown.

The two Healthcare systems on both columns show the largest changes between 2016 and 2025: AdventHealth rose from 20,413 to 37,672 employees and Orlando Health from 16,828 to 24,978 on the city's schedule (City of Orlando ACFR 2025).

Walt Disney World Resort moved from 74,000 to 75,000 and Universal Orlando Resort from 21,000 to 26,800, while Disney's share of metro jobs went from 6.06 percent to 4.87 percent and total metro employment on the schedule from 1,221,245 to 1,539,334 (City of Orlando ACFR 2025). UCF climbed from 11,833 to 13,004.

Five names are new to the 2025 top ten: Lockheed Martin with 14,000, SeaWorld Parks and Entertainment with 5,192, Darden Restaurants with 5,127, Valencia College with 4,970 and HCA Health Care with 4,831 (City of Orlando ACFR 2025). Publix Supermarkets and Seminole County Public Schools, ninth and tenth in 2016, drop off.

Leisure and hospitality is the largest private industry in Orange County, with 233,735 private jobs in March 2026 out of 961,014 covered jobs in the county, by the Bureau of Labor Statistics QCEW count (BLS QCEW, Orange County).

QCEW covered employment for Orange County includes workers covered by the Unemployment Insurance and Unemployment Compensation for Federal Employees programs. In March 2026 the county had 56,445 establishments, an average weekly wage of $1,432, and employment 1.2 percent higher than a year earlier (BLS county employment and wages in Florida). Among the 27 largest Florida counties, only Manatee grew faster, at 1.4 percent.

Wages differ sharply by industry group. Orange County leisure and hospitality averaged $884 a week in the first quarter of 2026, against $1,749 in professional and business services and $1,530 in private education and health services (BLS QCEW, Orange County). The county average for all covered jobs was $1,432 a week (BLS county employment and wages in Florida).

The Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford metro had 1,508,300 nonfarm jobs and a 4.6 percent unemployment rate in August 2026, both preliminary BLS figures (BLS Orlando Economy at a Glance).

Leisure and hospitality is still the largest metro sector at 301,300 jobs in August 2026, ahead of professional and business services at 281,400, trade, transportation and utilities at 264,500, education and health services at 207,100 and government at 136,700 (BLS Orlando Economy at a Glance). Total nonfarm employment was 0.8 percent above August 2025, a slower pace than the 1.2 to 1.4 percent gains BLS recorded for the metro in May through July.

The city's financial report lists the metro rate at 4.1 percent in September 2025 (City of Orlando ACFR 2025), while the BLS series shows 4.4 percent in March 2026 and 4.6 percent by August, not seasonally adjusted (BLS Orlando Economy at a Glance). The same ACFR table puts City of Orlando population at 340,681 in 2025, an Office of Economic and Demographic Research estimate, inside a metro of 2,961,947.

The City of Orlando had 4,135 full-time equivalent employees on September 30, 2025, up from 3,186 in 2016, with the Orlando Police Department the largest function at 1,329 (City of Orlando ACFR 2025).

After Police, the largest city functions on the fiscal 2025 table are Fire at 721, Families, Parks and Recreation at 330 and Water Reclamation at 280, with Solid Waste at 128 and Stormwater Utility at 102 (City of Orlando ACFR 2025).

Orange County Public Schools reports over 23,000 professionals, 201.5k students and 208 schools (Orange County Public Schools). UCF, whose employee counts appear above, reports Fall 2025 enrollment of 70,674 (UCF Facts 2025-2026).

Last verified: October 18, 2026, against the City of Orlando fiscal 2025 ACFR schedules, the BLS QCEW and Economy at a Glance data for Orange County and the Orlando metro, and the OCPS and UCF facts pages.