Cincinnati Ranks #42 In CBRE’s Annual ‘Scoring Tech Talent’ Report

Cincinnati ranks #42 overall in CBRE’s 2023 Scoring Tech Talent report, moving up two spots even as macroeconomic headwinds slowed tech talent hiring by major tech firms in North America, according to a new report from CBRE.

Overall, the U.S. and Canada added a net 760,000 tech talent jobs since 2020 across established hubs such as the San Francisco Bay Area, New York, Seattle and Vancouver as well as smaller markets like Nashville, Cleveland and Canada’s Waterloo Region. The number of U.S. tech talent workers increased 7.3% from May 2021 to May 2022, which is significantly higher than the 5% growth in total U.S. employment in May 2022. Software developers and programmers across all industries accounted for more than half of the new tech talent employment.

“Cincinnati generates a large volume of tech degree graduates from regional universities, which has fueled tech talent and tech industry employment growth,” said John Schenk, Associate at CBRE in Cincinnati. “In the face of a dynamic and evolving workplace landscape, our tech ecosystem has demonstrated resilience, with Cincinnati playing a pivotal role in this adaptability. Tech companies are attracted to Cincinnati’s low cost of operations, while tech employees, especially those in the 20s age bracket, look at the city as an affordable place to live with competitive wages and rents, compared to larger coastal markets.”

CBRE’s annual Scoring Tech Talent report covers 75 North American markets, ranks the top 50 tech markets in the U.S. and Canada and outlines tech talent labor market trends amid economic shifts and increased remote hiring. CBRE also ranks the Next 25 emerging tech markets on a narrower set of criteria. Tech talent is defined as 20 key tech professions – such as software engineers and systems and data managers – across all industries.

For the first time this year, CBRE’s report examines tech talent wages paid by tech companies based on geography. Cincinnati had the 14th highest average annual wage for tech talent ($73,689) among small tech talent markets (markets with less than 50,000 tech workers). The San Francisco Bay Area and Seattle had the highest average wages, while Sacramento and Jacksonville were the highest among small markets.

Cincinnati stood out in the report in several other key areas:

• Cincinnati’s tech talent workforce of 40,450 grew by 10% from 2017 to 2022. That’s the 12th biggest percentage gain among small tech talent markets.
• It created more tech graduates (10,788 from 2017 to 2021) than tech jobs (970 from 2018 to 2022), meaning that Cincinnati generates a surplus of tech talent for expanding and relocating companies.
• Cincinnati’s population of people in their 20s increased by 1.9% from 2016 to 2021, the sixth biggest gain among small markets. It also saw the third largest increase in residents in their 20s with college degrees (26.2%) among small markets during the same span.
• Cincinnati has relatively affordable real estate costs for a leading tech hub. Its average annual office asking rent ($19.46 per sq. ft.) is the 3rd least expensive, its average monthly apartment rent ($1,221 a month) is the 11th least expensive and its ratio of tech salary to apartment rent of 15.8% is the 11th lowest.
• Its estimated annual cost for firms with 500 employees occupying 60,000 sq. ft. ($46.4 million) is also the 19th least expensive among all tech markets.
• Nearly 48% of Cincinnati’s tech talent work in computer, support database and systems occupations.

To download the full report, click here.

Additionally, CBRE’s latest tech talent analyzer provides an interactive, in-depth comparison of tech talent in different markets. For more information, click here.