Atlanta ranked in the top five cities for tech talent out of the 50 largest markets in the U.S. and Canada for tech talent professionals, according to commercial real estate service provider CBRE.
Of the three Florida cities that made the rankings, Tampa came out way ahead overall. Tampa ranked 27th, Miami ranked 48th and Jacksonville, 49th for tech talent.
The market for tech talent is highly competitive, supply-constrained and growing, according to CBRE’s latest Scoring Tech Talent Report. It’s driving demand for commercial real estate to accommodate this growing workforce, according to CBRE, which claims to be the world’s largest commercial real estate services firm:
“(This has) accelerated the expansion of tech talent labor pools beyond major hubs and into smaller markets. These previously untapped and undersupplied regions are gaining appeal from startups and established companies. Accordingly, demand for commercial real estate to accommodate this growing workforce is on the rise.”
Top-ranked tech talent markets (overall rankings). Source: CBRE.com
Ebony T. Grimsley-Vaz is an entrepreneur based in the Tampa-St. Petersburg area. She owns Above Promotions, a digital marketing, publicity and promotions company.
Tampa is still developing an innovative tech ecosystem, but the area is on an accelerated track to be Florida’s — and perhaps even the south’s — newest business hub, Grimsley-Vaz said in a Moguldom report on Tampa Bay’s progress in the race to innovation hub status.
“I moved back to Tampa almost 16 years ago from the University of Central Florida with an industrial engineering degree. The landscape had changed, yet it was still not fertile ground for breeding successful startups and collaboration,” she said.
“The startup landscape has drastically changed … Now we have countless organizations and events focused on taking wild ideas and birthing them into viable products. We have large global companies like Microsoft and electronics manufacturer Jabil … New tech firms are setting up offices to take advantage of the talent Tampa is cultivating and attracting.”
South Florida’s startup scene is also thriving, producing more new businesses every year than any other large U.S. metro area, the Miami Herald reported on July 11:
But growing large companies has always been a challenge for the Miami area as well as for the state. Last year, the Miami metro area ranked 39th among the 40 largest metro areas for growth entrepreneurship.
Atlanta rose four spots to No. 5 in the tech talent rankings. The San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle and New York took the top three spots while Atlanta rose four spots to No. 5. Other big changes came from Denver and Newark—both rose six spots to 12th and 13th.
The CBRE tech talent scorecard uses 13 metrics to measure each market’s depth, vitality and attractiveness to companies seeking tech talent and to tech workers seeking employment. Labor costs for tech talent are weighted more heavily than office rents because companies allocate more capital to labor than to real estate, CBRE reported. Each metric was weighted by its relative importance to job creation and innovation. Tech talent concentration metrics have the highest weights because they signify clustering of tech workers.
It’s no secret that Atlanta has some of the best tech talent around, according to Hypepotamus editor Holly Beilin.
“Georgia Tech grads are coveted by Silicon Valley, Morehouse recently landed a partnership with JP Morgan to grow tech entrepreneurs, and GSU (Georgia State University, Emory, and other city schools’ entrepreneurship programs are top-notch,” Beilin wrote.
Here are some additional insights for the CBRE report:
San Francisco Bay area: 328,100
Atlanta: 133,800
Tampa: 45,300
Miami: 24,200
Jacksonville: 19,000
San Francisco Bay area: 10.3%
Atlanta: 5%
Tampa: 3.6%
Miami: 2.1%
Jacksonville: 2.9%
San Francisco Bay area: $123,200
Atlanta: $92,000
Tampa: $78,400
Miami: $75,7000
Jacksonville: $80,600
San Francisco Bay area: $61.42
Atlanta: $24.38
Tampa: $22.67
Miami: $36.44
Jacksonville: $19.07
San Francisco Bay area: $2,790
Atlanta: $1,110
Tampa: $1,110
Miami: $1,660
Jacksonville: $956
San Francisco Bay area: 49.9%
Atlanta:47.6%
Tampa: 55.3%
Miami: 46.8%
Jacksonville: 41.0%
San Francisco Bay area: 109,000
Atlanta: 43,000
Tampa: 16,000
Miami: 8,000
Jacksonville: 6,000
