The Top 20 Tech Markets in North America: Ranked

Silicon Valley is number one. Some of the others may surprise you. CBRE’s annual Scoring Tech Talent report, which uses 13 metrics such as population trends and education levels, has ranked North America’s top 20 tech markets.

The top five is rounded out by Washington DC, Seattle, New York, and Austin respectively. Seattle upset New York thanks to a growing number of well-paid and well-educated tech employees. Their average salary of $111,000 is second only to the Valley ($124,000).

The top Canadian city was Toronto in 12th, followed by Vancouver in 20th. The latter was noted for having the lowest cost to operate a tech company in all the markets CBRE surveyed.

“Tech talent accounts for only 3.5% of the total U.S. workforce, but it should be noted that the number of tech-talent workers has increased 27% over the past five years, adding more than 1 million jobs to the national economy—a pace more than three times the national average of all other occupations,” the report reads. “Beyond job creation, tech-talent workers are fueling new innovation and adapting technology within unconventional tech sectors to increase productivity and strengthen the national economy.”