Chapter 4

What are the highest- and lowest-cost markets to operate in?

Scoring Tech Talent 2026

Download the PDF report

Employee wages are the biggest cost for tech companies. Highly skilled and educated tech workers often command more than double the average non-tech salary.

The San Francisco Bay Area ranked highest for average tech worker salary at $195,000 per year, about $38,000 more than second-highest Seattle. The average tech worker salary in 19 of the 50 top tech talent markets was at or above their respective national average (13 U.S. and six Canadian markets).

Office rent is the second-biggest cost for most companies. Even though fully remote and hybrid work are common, companies understand the benefits of tech clustering and often place a higher value on specific submarkets and even specific streets convenient to tech talent. Manhattan has the highest average office rent, followed by the San Francisco Bay Area, South Florida, Boston and Austin.

Combining wage and real estate costs provides a benchmark of what a tech company might pay to operate in any of the top 50 tech talent markets. For this comparison, U.S. occupational averages were analyzed to determine the makeup of a typical 500-person tech company (Figure 30) using 60,000 sq. ft. of office space.

Figure 30: Average U.S. Tech Company Occupation Pools*

*Excluding high-tech manufacturing.
**Tech Talent includes the following occupation categories: software development & programming, computer support, database & systems, technology & engineering-related and computer information system management.
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, May 2026.

Local market wages were applied to the various occupations to determine total annual wage costs by market, while local market rents were used to estimate the annual cost of renting a 60,000-sq.-ft. office to house 500 employees. The San Francisco Bay Area topped the list with the highest estimated annual cost in 2025 at $91 million, followed distantly by New York Metro, Seattle and Boston. The lowest cost markets were all in Canada, with Quebec City the least expensive at $36 million (Figure 31). Since tech industry wages are 15% higher than the U.S. average, tech companies can expect higher annual costs. The 50-market average annual cost exceeded last year's by $2.4 million, almost entirely due to wage increases.

Figure 31: Estimated One-Year Company Costs by Market (500 Employees; 60,000 Sq. Ft. of Office Space)

1Average Rent × 60,000 SF
2Average Wage × 261 People
3Average Wage × 161 People
4Average Wage × 78 People
*In US$
**New York office rent cost represents Manhattan only, all others are metro area.
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Canada Statistics, CBRE Research, 2026.

Related Services

Item 0 Item 1 Item 2 Item 3

Related Insights

Contacts

Item 0 Item 1 Item 2 Item 3 Item 4 Item 5 Item 6 Item 7 Item 8
Chapter 5 How is Tech Talent quality vs. cost measured?
Chapter 3 How diverse are Tech Talent markets?