CBRE REPORT: CHARLOTTE AMONG CITIES WITH HIGHEST TECH TALENT GAINS

Charlotte – July 13, 2021 – Charlotte stands out as a tech-job creator and tech talent attractor, according to CBRE’s 2021 Scoring Tech Talent Report. Charlotte ranks fifth among the top 50 U.S. markets for its “brain gain” from 2015 to 2020, adding 7,519 more tech jobs than tech degrees to its workforce.

Numerous indicators underscore the resilience of tech talent during COVID-19. These occupations registered job growth of 0.8 percent in 2020 in the U.S. while non-tech occupations declined by 5.5 percent. Software developers and programmers were the most in demand tech-job category last year, adding 85,000 U.S. jobs for a 4.8 percent growth rate from a year earlier. Beyond the tech industry itself, those that added tech workers last year include financial activities, professional & business services, and government.

Charlotte has the 25^th largest tech talent labor pool nationally with 62,110 tech workers. The region’s tech talent labor pool grew by 31.3% from 2016-2020, making it the fifth largest increase among the top U.S. markets. Following the pandemic, factors including the size of a market’s talent labor pool is a key indicator of a region’s economic recovery.

Overall, the top five markets for tech talent in 2020 were the San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, Washington, D.C., Toronto and New York City, all large markets with a tech labor pool of more than 50,000. Charlotte moved up one spot from last year, ranking 27 overall as North American tech talent employment weathered the pandemic better than most other professions.

“Charlotte continues to make headlines related to our strong job growth, large amount of tech talent and corporate migration announcements,” said Joe Franco, a Senior Vice President at CBRE in Charlotte. “Tech-related jobs are certainly leading the charge, but we are seeing growth and demand in a wide array of industries, company sizes and geographic locations throughout the market.”

“Many factors already are in place to fuel strong tech-talent job growth this year and beyond, including demand for tech to facilitate continued remote work, robust e-commerce growth and streaming services,” said Todd Husak, Managing Director of CBRE’s Tech & Media Practice Group. “Big tech markets will gain from their established pipelines of tech graduates and many workers’ return to city centers. Smaller markets will reap benefits from their cost advantages in labor and real estate as well as the tech industry’s embrace of remote work for certain employees.”

CBRE’s annual report, now in its ninth year, ranks the top 50 North American markets by analyzing 13 measures of their ability to attract and develop tech talent, including tech graduation rates, tech-job concentration, tech labor pool size, and labor and real estate costs, among others. 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 developers and systems and data managers – across all industries.

Charlotte stood out in the report in a number of other key areas:

• Among large tech markets, Charlotte ranks eighth in millennial population change, having increased its millennial population by 17.1 percent (85,468 people) since 2014.
• Relative to an office-using employment benchmark, Charlotte has among the most diverse tech talent workforces. Charlotte’s tech talent employment from underrepresented groups* amounts to 25.5% of its workforce, a higher ratio than the 24.7 percent benchmark for office-using employment.
• Charlotte offers affordable living for tech-talent workers, with the average annual apartment rent amounting to 14.4 percent of the average tech-talent wage. That ranks 15^th lowest cost among the 50 largest tech-talent markets.

• The average one-year cost for operating a 500-employee tech company occupying 75,000 sq. ft. in Charlotte amounts to $46.2 million. That ranks as the 16^th most expensive among the top 50 tech-talent markets.

*Hispanic, Black, Other Non-White/Non-Asian

Top Overall North American Tech Markets

To download the report, click here.