There's been some jockeying among the top tech talent markets in North America, according to the latest Scoring Tech Talent report from CBRE, which was released last month.
The report analyzes labor market conditions, cost and quality among highly-skilled workers in Canada and the U.S.
Among the major takeaways in this year's edition, CBRE reported:
- More than 6 million highly skilled workers across the U.S. and Canada comprise the tech talent that is leading global innovation. Shrinking availability of tech talent in leading markets has spurred a spillover of hiring momentum in smaller and upstart markets in the U.S. and Canada as expanding tech employers seek additional labor pools.
- Overall, big markets have continued to produce the largest volumes of jobs and tech degree graduates over the past five years, but several years of low unemployment rates have dampened the momentum of many leading tech talent markets. Partly as a result, smaller “Next 25” markets have absorbed an increased amount of tech-labor demand.
- The high-tech industry has accounted for about 20 percent of major office-leasing activity in the U.S. since 2018—the most of any industry. This has left little available office space in many key large markets and pushed up rents to peak levels.
The San Franciso Bay Area and Seattle retained the top two spots in CBRE's ranking of the top markets. Toronto and Washington, D.C., swapped spots at three and four in this year's edition. And New York rounded out the top five for the second straight year.
There was more movement lower in the ranks. Denver rose two spots from 10th last year to eighth this year, switching spots with Raleigh-Durham, N.C., which fell two notches. New entrants in the top 20 in this year's survey included Vancouver at 12, Salt Lake City at 15 and Portland, Ore., at 16. None of those ranked in the top 20 a year ago.
The following gallery features the top 20 ranked markets in CBRE's report, including some of the key metrics for each market.