CBRE’s core business is providing actionable information to real estate investors and firms. Its products are objective- and data-driven, so you get hard numbers and rankings rather than subjective surveys or anecdotal reports. The company uses 13 metrics to rate cities in both large and small tech markets. Factors such as wages, education levels, population trends, business and housing costs, and the current number of tech employees all figure in CBRE’s rankings.
For large markets, the San Francisco Bay Area; Washington, D.C.; and Seattle held the top three spots, in that order, followed by New York, Austin, and Dallas. A big change this third annual report year is that Seattle overtook New York for third place. The three top-rated small market cities for tech talent were Columbus, Ohio; Charlotte, North Carolina; and Portland, Oregon.
The CBRE report states there are 27 percent more tech workers in the U.S. and Canada in 2016 than there were in 2015. There are 4.8 million tech workers in four occupations: computer systems and support, software developers, tech engineers, and tech management. The leaders for each category are Washington, D.C., for computer systems and support personnel and the San Francisco Bay Area for the software developers, tech engineers, and tech management. Significantly, in the CBRE tech talent rating (on a 0 to 100 scale), San Francisco’s 84.62 top score was far greater than second-place Washington, at 67.24. After the top two cities, the scores decline more gradually.
You are probably not surprised that San Francisco scored the largest job growth in the past five years, at 61.5 percent, but San Francisco also leads in business costs and rent increases.
Other markets have interesting stats in the CBRE report. For example, Seattle lead in highest educational attainment, Washington had the top (25.8 percent) millennial growth, and Boston ranked as the top tech education market, with more degrees than jobs.
For tech talent information that matters to you, get the free download of the CBRE 2016 Scoring Tech Talent report at this website. All you have to do is register.
