Increased demand for tech services during the pandemic has meant that tech hubs in the US will continue to grow in importance, according to a new report from CBRE.
“We expect that most tech-talent hubs and professions will thrive after the pandemic subsides, and many that facilitate remote work, e-commerce, social media and streaming services may have even greater growth opportunities accelerated by the Covid-19 disruption,” said Colin Yasukochi, executive director of CBRE’s Tech Insights Center.
“Markets that have strong innovation infrastructure – leading universities and high concentrations of tech jobs – will lead the next growth cycle.”
In its annual Scoring Tech Talent report, CBRE reported that the San Francisco Bay Area led the rankings for the top 50 tech talent markets in the US and Canada for the eight year.
However, it is the most expensive market in terms of space. A 500-person tech company leasing 75,000 sq ft of space costs an average of $62m (£49m) a year. Montreal, which was ranked at 16th in the top 50 tech-talent markets, is the least expensive at $29.6m.
Second spot in the rankings was Washington DC, off the back of several years of growth. Federal budget sequestration in 2013 pushed Seattle into third place.
Top of CBRE’s ‘Next 25’ up-and-coming tech talent markets was the Waterloo region of Ontario and Omaha in Nebraska, followed by Huntsville in Alabama. These smaller markets have supported the expansion of tech talent, which has grown by 17% over the past five years to 5.4m jobs in the US.
“Tech-talent workers are the ones that have made it possible for us to remain productive during our crash course this year in remote working,” said CBRE director of research and analysis and co-author of Scoring Tech Talent Lexi Russell.
“This might entice more companies to distribute their workforce more broadly by branching into tech-talent markets outside the top 50, or even outside the top 75.”
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