Scoring Tech Talent 2026

Scoring Tech Talent is a comprehensive analysis of labor market conditions, costs and quality in North America for highly skilled tech workers that can help decision-makers fulfill critical business and innovation objectives.

The top 50 markets in the U.S. and Canada were ranked according to their competitive advantages and appeal to both employers and tech talent employees. Twenty-five up-and-coming U.S. and Canadian markets were also analyzed and ranked. The analysis provides further insight into the quality of tech workers, their demographics and diversity and how tech talent growth patterns are impacting cities and real estate markets.

Tech Talent Scorecard Ranking

Jump to additional information about the top-ranked Tech Talent markets.

The number of AI-skilled tech talent workers across the U.S. and Canada increased by 45% year-over-year to 751,000 as of mid-2026, as employers continued to incorporate artificial intelligence (AI) in their operations. This is most apparent in the U.S. high-tech industry where AI-related jobs are being added and non-AI-related jobs are being eliminated.

Total U.S. tech talent employment grew by 1.8% or 108,760 jobs in 2025, up from a 1.1% increase in 2024 but well below the peak growth rate of 7.3% in 2022 when employers added 405,000 jobs. High-tech added the most jobs of any industry in 2025 but grew by less than half the rate of finance, insurance & real estate (FIRE) (Figure 1).

Total Canadian tech talent employment grew by 7.6% or 91,300 jobs in 2025 (Figure 2). The high-tech industry accounted for 29% of new jobs. FIRE and the transportation, warehousing & wholesale industries grew fastest, each at about 9.5%.

Figure 1: U.S. Tech Talent Employment Growth by Industry (2025) & Figure 2: Canada Tech Talent Employment Growth by Industry (2025)

The restructuring of tech talent workforces that added AI roles and cut others mostly occurred in the U.S. high-tech industry. Since 2022, the FIRE sector has added the most tech jobs (90,530), while the high-tech industry has shed 21,262. The professional services and transportation, warehousing & wholesale sectors each added about 66,000 since 2022.

The modest growth in U.S. tech talent jobs was concentrated in AI-related roles. Data scientist occupations grew by 12.4% or 29,000 jobs in 2025, led by FIRE (13.8% or 5,870 jobs) and high-tech (9.0% or 5,380 jobs). Computer & information systems managers, who oversee enterprise data and security systems, grew by 3.8% or 24,600 jobs, led by professional & business services (5,700) and high-tech (4,890). Technology and engineering jobs increased by 15,030, mostly in the high-tech industry (7,360) and professional & business services (4,560). Manufacturing accounted for 95% of the high-tech industry’s new technology and engineering jobs in 2025.

The general restructuring of tech talent workforces added AI roles while cutting others. Employers cut 1.21 million jobs in 2025, up from 761,358 in 2024. Through June, the tech industry accounted for a record-high 31% of the 443,604 job cuts so far this year, compared with the 13% of job cuts for all of 2025. Job cuts that employers attributed directly to AI rose to 101,743 (22.9%) across all industries so far this year, up from 54,836 (4.5%) for all of last year (Figure 3).

Figure 3: U.S. AI-Related Job Cuts Across All Industries

Job postings indicate a shift in hiring toward AI-related roles. In the U.S., AI-related roles accounted for 31% of available tech talent jobs as of June 2026, up from 11% when overall tech postings last peaked in mid-2022 (Figure 4). In the San Francisco Bay Area, AI's share rose to 57% from 20% over the same periods, (Figure 5). Both the U.S. overall and San Francisco Bay Area had one-third more AI job postings than at the mid-2022 peak, while non-AI tech postings fell 60% in the U.S. and 73% in the Bay Area.

These trends influenced where work is conducted. Fully remote arrangements for new roles declined as employers moved to hybrid schedules of three or more days in the office. AI companies largely require full-time, in-person work. In the San Francisco Bay Area, remote job postings fell to 7% as of April 2026 from 24% in mid-2022, well below the current 18% share across all U.S. tech talent postings.

Figure 4: U.S. AI-Specialty & Remote Share of Total Tech Talent Job Listings

AI is also driving growth in venture capital and office space demand. The San Francisco Bay Area has drawn 80% of U.S. AI venture funding since 2020 and is home to one-sixth of U.S. AI-specialty talent, according to data from Pitchbook and LinkedIn Talent Insights. The impact on office demand is most apparent in San Franciso, where AI-related companies have accounted for 30% of activity since 2023.

AI-related job growth is now spreading across North America, supporting economic and real estate activity in tech talent markets beyond the coasts.

Figure 5: San Francisco Bay Area AI-Specialty & Remote Share of Total Tech Talent Job Listings

1. Score. This year's top-six tech talent markets are the same as last year: San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, Toronto, New York Metro, Austin and Washington, D.C. Boston advanced two spots to seventh, with Dallas-Ft. Worth, Vancouver and Canada's Waterloo Region rounding out the top 10. Montreal (11), Pittsburgh (28), Nashville (33) and Jacksonville (39) improved the most in rank. New York became the largest tech talent market, with its total workforce surpassing that of the San Francisco Bay Area.
2. Artificial Intelligence. Demand for AI-related skills increased the size of the AI workforce by 45% to 751,000 across the U.S. and Canada as of mid-2026. Data scientists led AI-related job growth in the U.S., alongside gains in computer & information systems managers and technology & engineering roles. The San Francisco Bay Area, New York Metro, Seattle and Washington, D.C. hold the largest U.S. AI-specialty talent clusters at 37% of the U.S. total, while Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver contain 60% of Canada's. The tech industry employs the largest share of all AI-specialty talent, followed by the professional & business services and FIRE sectors.
3. Jobs vs. Education. Slowing demand for tech talent and rising supply of tech graduates reduced the number of net job creation markets and increased the number of education or net tech graduate markets from last year. Toronto, Calgary, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Seattle and Nashville were the top five of only nine net job creation markets. Washington, D.C. and the San Francisco Bay Area lost jobs and were the top two net tech graduate markets.
4. Diversity. Tech talent across all industries was predominantly White, Asian and male relative to both the overall and office-using workforce. Hispanics, Blacks and females were underrepresented in both tech talent occupations and the tech industry. Canada's tech talent workforce was more diverse than that of the U.S. but had a much smaller underrepresented share.
5. Cost. The total annual labor and real estate cost for the typical 500-person tech company occupying 60,000 sq. ft. of office space ranged from $36 million in Quebec City to $91 million in the San Francisco Bay Area. Since tech industry wages are 15% higher than the U.S. average across industries, tech companies can expect higher annual costs.
6. Opportunity Markets. Fostering talent development in lesser-known markets could offer additional talent pools to employers seeking to expand their geographical reach, uncover opportunities and increase cost efficiency. These markets are spread across the U.S. and Canada. Huntsville, Halifax, Colorado Springs, Dayton and London (Ontario) were the top-ranked opportunity markets.

Highly skilled tech talent workers total 7.6 million in the U.S. and Canada and comprise more than 20 occupations.

Although these positions are spread across all industry sectors, they are mostly concentrated in the high-tech industry (Figure 6). Through this occupational lens, a software developer who works for a financial services or health-care company is considered tech talent.

The 6.3 million tech talent workers in the U.S. and 1.3 million in Canada accounted for 4.0% and 7.0% of each country’s total workforce in 2025. The number of U.S. tech talent workers has increased by 316,000 or 5.3% since 2022, higher than the 3.9% rise in total U.S. employment. In Canada, tech talent grew by 183,000 or 16.5% vs 7.1% for overall employment since 2022. Most of the gains were for software developers & programmers and computer & information systems managers.

Figure 6: Tech Talent Workforce by Industry (2025)

Fifty of the largest markets by number of tech talent professionals in the U.S. and Canada were analyzed to create a scorecard ranking them comparatively.

The scorecard uses 13 metrics to measure each market's depth, vitality and attractiveness to companies seeking tech talent and to tech workers seeking employment. Each metric is weighted by its relative importance to job creation and innovation. Tech talent concentration metrics have the highest weights because they signify clustering of tech workers. Labor costs for tech talent are weighted more heavily than office rents because companies allocate more capital to labor than to real estate.

The top-six tech talent markets were unchanged from last year: San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, Toronto, New York Metro, Austin and Washington, D.C. The next four market rankings shifted slightly, with Boston advancing two spots to seventh and Vancouver advancing one spot to ninth. Outside of the top 10 markets, Nashville (+6 spots), Montreal (+4 spots), Jacksonville (+4 spots) and Pittsburgh (+3 spots) moved up the most in rank, primarily due to accelerated or above-average tech talent workforce growth.

As companies across all industries use more technology, there is high demand for tech talent in both large and small markets. Major gateway markets dominate overall tech talent growth because of their size. These and other markets with tech talent labor pools of more than 50,000 workers are categorized as "large," while those below this threshold are categorized as "small" (Figure 8). Both large and small markets have their advantages: While large markets generally have a deeper pool of talent, small markets typically offer business and cost-of-living savings.

New York became the largest tech talent market in 2025, surpassing the San Francisco Bay Area. The tech talent workforce grew by 30,640 to 394,300 in the New York Metro and contracted by 23,900 to 375,730 in the San Francisco Bay Area between 2022 and 2025.

The biggest tech job increases were in Toronto (75,000), Dallas-Ft. Worth (37,230) and New York (30,640). Markets with the highest tech job growth rates were Calgary (56%), Canada's Waterloo Region (37%), Nashville (34%), Toronto (27%), Jacksonville (23%) and Dallas-Ft. Worth (19%).

Tech talent concentration—the percentage of total employment—is an influential factor in how "tech" the market is and in its growth potential. Tech talent comprises more than 10% of total employment in Ottawa, the Waterloo Region, Toronto, the San Francisco Bay Area and Seattle. The 50-market average was 5.5%.

Figure 8: Tech Talent Workforce by Market (2025)

Tech talent concentration by industry is another influential factor in attracting tech employers. While many technical skills are transferable across industries, specific industry experience can help to enhance innovation. In both the U.S. and Canada, more than 38% of tech talent works within the tech industry. By market, this concentration varies considerably even though the tech industry was the largest tech talent employer in all markets except Ottawa. The San Francisco Bay Area, the Waterloo Region, Vancouver, Austin and Seattle had the highest concentrations of tech talent within the tech industry, each over 50% (Figure 9). Edmonton, Richmond and St. Louis had the lowest tech concentrations.

Certain markets had high concentrations of tech talent in non-tech industries, including government in Ottawa (39%) and Sacramento (17%) and manufacturing in Detroit (27%). Charlotte (28%), Jacksonville (24%), Columbus (23%) and Hartford (23%) had relatively high concentrations of tech talent in the FIRE sector.

Figure 9: Share of Tech Talent Workforce in the Tech Industry (2025)

Traditionally, tech companies often based location decisions on which markets had the most available tech workers. Today, tech employers are more interested in attracting people with specific tech skills, which often command higher wages. Tech companies pay wages that are about 15% above the U.S. average and have more workers earning over $150,000 per year than other industries (Figure 10). The tech industry wage premium in Canada was 8%.

Figure 10: Average Annual Wage for Tech Talent by Industry (2024)

Slower hiring by the tech industry has provided more opportunities for non-tech employers to build their tech talent teams. This shift has reduced the U.S. tech industry wage premium to 15% in 2024 from 18% in 2023.

Average tech talent wages are highest by a wide margin in the San Francisco Bay Area and Seattle and lowest in Edmonton and Quebec City (Figure 11).

Figure 11: Average Annual Wage for Tech Talent Employed by the Tech Industry (2024)

Software engineers are also highly concentrated in the tech industry and in certain markets. In the U.S. and Canada, 48% and 55% of all software engineers, respectively, work within the tech industry. The San Francisco Bay Area (69%), the Waterloo Region (67%), Vancouver (66%), Seattle (63%) and Austin (63%) had the highest concentrations of software engineers working in the tech industry (Figure 12). Ten other markets exceed 50% concentration of software engineers in the tech industry.

Figure 12: Top 15 Markets for Software Engineers Employed by the Tech Industry (2024)