San Francisco Bay Area Sees Surge in Tech Talent with AI Skills, Fueling Next Tech Growth Cycle

The tech talent workforce in the San Francisco Bay Area with artificial intelligence (AI) skills increased 24% from last year despite slower tech job growth overall, according to CBRE’s 2025 Scoring Tech Talent report.

Overall U.S. tech talent employment grew 1.1% (64,140 jobs) in 2024, far below its peak in 2022 (+7%). Canada had stronger growth (+5.9%) than the U.S., adding 66,600 tech talent jobs overall, primarily in the high-tech industry. The number of computer and information systems managers surged in the U.S. (+9%) and Canada (+16%) due to the widespread adoption of AI, making that job the fastest growing among all tech talent roles across North America. In 2024, computer and information systems managers accounted for 83% of U.S. tech talent job growth.

The Bay Area has attracted three-quarters of U.S. AI venture capital funding since 2019, according to data from Pitchbook. It also has most of the country’s largest start-up AI companies and two of the top five university AI programs, according to U.S. News & World Report.

The Bay Area has the most AI tech talent (76,079), up from 61,497 in 2024, according to CBRE’s analysis of LinkedIn Talent Insights. New York Metro was a distant second with 47,245 AI tech talent.

The rapid growth of AI-related companies led to a rebound in office leasing activity by the high-tech industry. In the first half of 2025, tech companies accounted for 17% of total U.S. office leasing activity, up from 10% in late 2022. In San Francisco, AI-related companies leased 1.1 million sq. ft. of office space in the first half of the year, 75% of which was new growth.

“The rapid development and adoption of AI is generating economic growth across major tech hubs that are receiving record amounts of venture capital funding and corporate investment in AI initiatives,” said Colin Yasukochi, executive director of CBRE’s Tech Insights Center. “The AI industry could be the catalyst for another growth cycle among office-using companies, potentially boosting hiring and future office space demand.”

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. The Bay Area has taken the top spot in the rankings for the 12th year in a row. CBRE also ranks the Next 25 emerging tech markets on a narrower set of criteria. Tech talent is a group of highly skilled workers in more than 20 tech-oriented occupations – such as software engineers and systems and data managers – across all industries.

For the third year, CBRE’s report examines tech talent wages paid by tech companies based on geography. The San Francisco Bay Area had the highest average annual wage for tech talent employed by the tech industry in 2023 ($215,072), followed by Seattle ($186,621) and San Diego ($137,489).

The San Francisco Bay Area stood out in the report in several other key areas:

• The San Francisco Bay Area added 36,950 tech talent jobs between 2021 and 2024, the fourth-largest gain of any market. New York Metro (47,940), Dallas-Ft. Worth (47,100) and Toronto (42,900) added the most tech talent jobs.
• It had the highest concentration of tech talent within the tech industry at 61.2%, followed by Seattle (53.2%), Vancouver (52.4%) and Austin (51.4%).
• The region had the second highest concentration of software engineers employed by the tech industry (70%).
• It is also one of the most diverse markets for females with tech degree graduates.
• The San Francisco Bay Area has an educational attainment rate of 53.9%, the second highest behind Washington, D.C. (54.9%). The San Francisco Bay Area is the most expensive market to operate in. The estimated one-year cost for a company with 500 employees renting 60,000 sq. ft. of space is nearly $87 million.
• The region’s rent-to-tech wage ratio is 18.7%, which is below the affordability standard of a 30% ratio of income to housing. The market’s annualized apartment rent in 2024 was $36,110, the second highest in the nation; the average annual tech wage was $193,116.