Best US Cities For Technology Job Growth: Dice Q2 Report
Dice analyzed more than one million tech job postings between April and June of 2021 and compared the data to its job-posting stats from the previous three months, as well as historical trends, for its Q2 2021 Tech Job Report.
New York City, Atlanta and Chicago were the top U.S. cities for technology job postings volume in the second quarter, as tech hirings surged nationwide, according to a report from Dice.
Las Vegas, Sacramento, Calif., and Huntsville, Ala., meanwhile, were the top fastest growing tech cities by job listings.
Dice, a tech career hub, analyzed more than one million tech job postings between April and June of 2021 and compared the data to its job-posting stats from January to March of 2021, as well as historical trends, for its Q2 2021 Tech Job Report.
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“We are in one of the hottest tech job markets since the dot-com era, as evidenced by the upward trend in tech job postings since November 2020,” Dice CEO Art Zeile said in a statement. “What’s most encouraging to me is the sweeping growth we experienced in the second quarter regardless of location, desired occupation or skillset. When pairing the increases in tech hiring with the steadfastly low-tech unemployment rate of 2.2 percent, it remains clear that technologists are in incredibly high demand across multiple sectors including tech, defense, healthcare and finance.”
Texas, which continued to rank second only to California for tech job listings, experienced strong growth in Austin, Dallas, Houston and Plano — “strengthening the narrative of its potential to rival the Golden State as a tech powerhouse,” Dice said. Third-ranked New York’s gains were driven by listing increases in New York City, where postings grew 21 percent from the first quarter.
Seventy-eight percent of the top 50 tech employers — as ranked by job postings volume — increased the numbers of their job listings compared to the first quarter.
Here’s a deeper look at how the numbers played out for the top U.S. tech cities.
Top Tech 10 Cities B y Job Posting Volume
(With quarter-over-quarter growth from Q1 2021 to Q2 2021)
1. New York, N.Y. 21 percent
2. Atlanta, Ga. 18 percent
3. Chicago, Ill. 11 percent
4. San Francisco, Calif. 4 percent
5. Washington, D.C. 18 percent
6. Austin, Tex. 25 percent
7. Seattle, Wash. 0 percent
8. Dallas, Tex. 22 percent
9. Los Angeles, Calif. 7 percent
10. Boston, Mass. 25 percent
Forty-eight of the top 50 cities with the highest tech job posting volume saw quarter-over-quarter growth in listings. The top five tech hub cities retained their standings. Meanwhile, Austin took over the sixth slot from Seattle, which moved to seventh and was the only top 10 city with zero growth; Dallas took the eighth spot, moving Los Angeles to ninth; and Boston grabbed the 10th slot, dropping Charlotte to 11th. At No. 20, Raleigh, N.C., saw a 4 percent decrease in its tech job listings, the only city to see a drop.
Top 10 Fastest Growing Tech Cities B y Job Posting Volume
(With quarter-over-quarter growth from Q1 2021 to Q2 2021; only includes cities in top 50 by posting volume )
1. Las Vegas, Nev. 43 percent
2. Sacramento, Calif. 36 percent
3. Huntsville, Ala. 35 percent
4. Nashville, Tenn. 32 percent
5. Hartford, Conn. 31 percent
6. Miami, Fla. 30 percent
7. Colorado Springs, Colo. 27 percent
8. Phoenix, Ariz. 26 percent
9. Austin, Tex. 25 percent
10. Jersey City, N.J. 25 percent
Las Vegas, which saw a 43 percent increase in its tech job listings, also was one of the fastest-growing tech markets prior to the coronavirus pandemic, with openings in high-growth areas including software engineering, gaming technology, data centers and autonomous vehicles, according to the Dice report.
“Sacramento, which saw a 36 percent increase in tech job postings during the second quarter, has also been receiving positive press as a growing hub for innovation,” the Dice report said. “The city already hosts DialSource, Zennify, Accenture and Trifecta, and has a strong four-year university presence. Sacramento has also emerged as a top location for migrants from the higher-cost-of-living Bay Area.”
New Tech Job Postings In The Top 15 Cities
(With peak listing volumes in the last 18 months)
Atlanta, Ga. 9,228 postings in May 2021
Austin, Tex. 7,112 postings in March 2020
Boston, Mass. 6,021 postings in February 2020
Charlotte, N.C. 7,454 postings in January 2020
Chicago, Ill. 8,775 postings in January 2020
Dallas, Tex. 5,883 postings in January 2020
Denver, Colo. 4,786 postings in March 2020
Houston, Tex. 6,625 postings in January 2020
Los Angeles, Calif. 7,207 postings in March 2020
New York, N.Y. 16,189 postings in February 2020
Phoenix, Ariz. 4,667 postings in March 2020
San Diego, Calif. 6,186 postings in March 2020
San Francisco, Calif. 9,146 postings in March 2020
Seattle, Wash. 6,148 postings in March 2021
Washington, D.C. 8,508 postings in March 2020
Many of the top 15 U.S. cities by job posting volume approached pre-pandemic hiring levels in the second quarter, albeit at different rates, according to Dice.
Tech City Highlight: Austin, Texas
Hiring Trends
Q2 rank: 6th
Quarter-over- quarter growth: 25 percent
Top hiring companies in Q2: IBM, Deloitte, Accenture, Amazon and VMware
Top occupations in Q2: software developer, project manager, application developer, network engineer and business analyst
Average tech salary: $104,344
Living Costs
Median home cost: $369,0005
Average rent for a one-bedroom apartment: $1,186 per month
Referred to as “Silicon Hills,” Austin’s population has grown by almost 30 percent in the last 11 years, and the city is building a dynamic tech scene, according to the Dice report. It hosts the South by Southwest festivals and conferences that celebrate the convergence of the tech, film and music industries. It’s also been host to IBM, Dell and Samsung in the past 40 years, and Google, Facebook, Oracle and Atlassian employ thousands of workers there. Austin also will get a new Apple campus and Tesla’s Gigafactory.
Tech City Highlight: Charlotte, N.C.
Hiring Trends
Q2 rank: 11th
Quarter-over-quarter growth: 9 percent
Top hiring companies in Q2: Bank of America, Lowe’s Home Improvement, Wells Fargo, Microsoft and Humana
Top occupations in Q2: software developer, project manager, application developer, network engineer and business analyst
Average tech salary: $99,691
Living Costs
Median home cost: $228,800
Average rent for a one-bedroom apartment: $989 per month
North Carolina’s competitive incentives have attracted tech companies. Fintech company Credit Karma in May announced it was investing $13 million to transform its existing operations in Charlotte into an East Coast headquarters and adding 600 new jobs. Electric vehicle company Arrival in December said it would invest about $3 million to establish its North American headquarters in Charlotte and add 150 new employees there. They join Passport, a mobility software platform company, and Bank of America and AvidXChange, which specializes in account payable automation software.
Tech City Highlight: Atlanta, Ga.
Hiring Trends
Q2 rank: 2nd
Quarter-over-quarter growth: 18 percent
Top hiring organizations in Q2: Capgemini, Home Depot, Amazon, Salesforce and Honeywell
Top occupations in Q2: software developer, network engineer, project manager, senior software developer and business analyst
Average tech salary: $94,386
Referred to as the Silicon Peach, Atlanta was second only to New York City in tech job posting volume for the second quarter. It has a large concentration of high-tech development that continues to grow, the Dice reported noted. In February, Airbnb announced plans to open a technical hub in the city, where Honeywell and General Electric have presences, and investment management firm BlackRock has an innovation center. The headquarters of Coca-Cola, Delta Air Lines, Home Depot and UPS also are located in Atlanta.