San Antonio Ranks #45 In CBRE’s Annual ‘Scoring Tech Talent’ Report

San Antonio ranks #45 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.

“The cyber security sector of San Antonio’s tech industry has grown dramatically in recent years and has been a major factor in San Antonio’s increasing tech talent rank,” said Larry Mendez, First Vice President in CBRE’s San Antonio office. “Synergy created by the National Security Agency’s large presence on the westside, the Sixteenth Air Force’s commitment to grow their cyber capabilities at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland and the University of Texas at San Antonio’s ability to produce a large number of cyber security graduates year-over-y has made San Antonio a sought-after destination for many public and private cyber tenants.”

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. San Antonio had the 11th highest average annual wage for tech talent working in the tech industry ($79,048) among small tech talent markets (markets with less than 50,000 tech workers). The San Francisco Bay Area ($185,425) and Seattle ($172,009) had the highest average wages, while Sacramento ($107,580) and Jacksonville ($105,353) were the highest among small markets.

San Antonio stood out in the report in several other key areas:

• San Antonio’s tech talent workforce of 33,470 grew by 7% from 2017 to 2022. That’s tied for the 13th biggest gain among small tech talent markets.
• San Antonio’s population of people in their 20s increased by 2.3% and the population of people in their 30s increased by 13.1%, the fourth and fifth-largest gains, respectively, from 2016 to 2021 among small markets. It also saw the seventh largest increase in residents in their 20s with college degrees (17.6%) among small markets during the same span.
• For underrepresented race/ethnic groups, San Antonio is the second most diverse among small tech markets.
• San Antonio has relatively affordable real estate costs for a leading tech hub. Its average annual office asking rent ($25.42 per sq. ft.) is 22nd lease expensive, its average monthly apartment rent ($1,273)  is 15th least expensive and its ratio of tech salary to apartment rent of 15.6% is ninth lowest.
• Its estimated annual cost for firms with 500 employees occupying 60,000 sq. ft. ($46.3 million) is also the 17th lease expensive among all tech markets.
• San Antonio has the highest concentration of tech talent that work in computer, support database and systems occupations among all markets at 56.3%.

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.