Dallas-Fort Worth figured in the top 10 tech talent markets in North America, according to a recent report from the world’s largest commercial real estate services and investment firm.
CBRE published its 2023 Scoring Tech Talent report last week, ranking DFW ninth in a review of the largest markets for “depth, vitality, and attractiveness to companies seeking tech talent and to tech workers seeking employment.”
The assessment leverages 13 different metrics to determine a score, with measures like job opportunities and affordability with respect to labor and office costs taken into consideration.
While DFW and Austin (No.6) stood in the same spots in last year’s ranking, the tech talent markets appearing in the top five — San Francisco Bay Area (No.1), Seattle (No.2), New York Metro (No.3), Washington, D.C. (No.4), and Toronto (No.5) — moved around a tiny bit. Toronto and New York Metro swapped places, with each placing third and fifth place in 2022.
Despite placing the same as last year, DFW has been on an upward trajectory, with an impressive influx of 45,170 tech workers, a growth of over 28%, logged between 2017 and 2022.
This surge has made North Texas the sixth-largest tech labor pool across North America. It surpassed 200,000 this year, according to Jeffrey Eiting, co-leader of CBRE’s Technology and Media Practice in Dallas.
Large contributors to this growth have been the tech degree programs offered at local universities like Texas A&M Commerce, University of Texas at Dallas, University of Texas at Arlington, University of North Texas, and Southern Methodist University.
In 2021, 7,299 tech-related degrees were conferred in DFW, marking a 10.5% increase from 2017.
In terms of attracting a robust labor pool, tech workers in North Texas enjoy an average annual wage of $91,051.
Regional tech job growth has also outshined other U.S. markets, with 59,440 jobs added between 2018 to 2022.
“The amount of tech degrees keeps increasing, and we have enough new jobs every year to keep the graduates in the region,” Eiting said, according to the Dallas Business Journal.
As previously reported in The Dallas Express, the BioLabs incubator at Pegasus Park has led to biotech companies like Aakha Biologics setting up their headquarters in the DFW region.
Alongside biotech, the field of semiconductor manufacturing has established its presence in North Texas through multibillion-dollar investments by Texas Instruments and GlobalWafer.
Moreover, another CBRE report published earlier this year named DFW a top market for data centers, as covered in The Dallas Express. The review found that the metro’s data center inventory had grown by 247% since 2015.
“Overall, DFW continues to have a growing, high-quality tech labor pool, and the hope is that the area’s low cost of living, low operating costs, and thriving business climate will keep talent locally, especially with the choices that hybrid work offers,” Eiting said, according to the Dallas Business Journal.