Sacramento Ranked One of North America's Top Smaller Markets for Tech Talent According to CBRE Report

Sacramento has moved up to #38 on CBRE’s Tech Talent Scorecard and #6 out of the smaller markets, part of its annual Scoring Tech Talent Report, which ranks 50 U.S. and Canadian markets according to their ability to attract and grow tech talent.

Tech labor concentration – or the percentage of total employment – is an influential factor in how “tech-centric” the market is and its growth potential. Sacramento has a tech talent labor pool of 39,110, or 4% of its total employment, compared to the national average of 3.7%.

“With a number of homegrown tech companies as well as some recent additions to the Sacramento region, the market continues to establish itself as a growing center for tech,” said Lisa Stanley, first vice president in CBRE’s Sacramento office. “Greater Sacramento’s tech community benefits heavily from the region’s quality of life, talented workforce and close proximity to the Bay Area, which make it a great outpost for expanding Bay Area firms.”

The top five markets for tech talent in 2019 were the San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, Toronto, Washington, D.C., and New York, all large markets with a tech labor pool of more than 50,000.

The Tech Talent Scorecard is determined based on 13 unique metrics, including tech talent supply, growth, concentration, cost, completed tech degrees, industry outlook for job growth, and market outlook for both office and apartment rent cost growth.

Sacramento stands out in the report in a number of other key areas:

• Sacramento’s tech employment has grown 12.6% since 2013
• 22% growth in software developers and programmers
• Sacramento remains a low-cost alternative to its neighbor, the Bay Area, in regard to housing and relative cost of living. The rent-to-tech wage ratio is the considerably lower at 17.7%, compared to the Bay Area’s 26.4%. The average apartment rent for a year in 2019 is $17,153 ($1,429/month), and the average annual tech wage is $96,721. In the most expensive market, New York (Manhattan), NY, those numbers are $49,445 ($4,120/month) and $113,500, (a rent-to-wage ratio of 43.6 percent) respectively.
  
  

Top 10 tech talent markets:

CBRE's interactive Tech Talent Analyzer found the San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, Denver and Austin to be the most competitive markets to hire tech talent based on labor market supply/demand, wage costs and talent quality. 

View the full report here. To view individual market statistics and rankings, including rankings on the Scorecard, access CBRE’s Tech Talent Analyzer.