Evolving Workforces

Scoring Tech Talent 2025

AI Revolution Reshaping Tech Talent Workforces

September 9, 2025 30 Minute Read

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Scoring Tech Talent is a comprehensive analysis of labor market conditions, costs and quality in North America for highly skilled tech workers that can help decision-makers fulfill critical business and innovation objectives.

The top 50 markets in the U.S. and Canada were ranked according to their competitive advantages and appeal to both employers and tech talent employees. Thirty-six up-and-coming markets were also analyzed and ranked, 25 in the U.S. and Canada and 11 in Latin America. The analysis provides further insight into the quality of tech workers, their demographics and diversity and how tech talent growth patterns are impacting cities and real estate markets.

Companies are realigning their tech talent workforces to pursue AI initiatives.

Tech talent workforce growth across the U.S. and Canada slowed last year as employers redeployed and upskilled their existing teams to utilize artificial intelligence (AI) applications for business efficiency. This repositioning of talent led to a 50% year-over-year increase in AI-skilled tech talent workers to 517,000.1 Employers also surged new hiring of specialized AI tech talent.

U.S. tech talent employment grew by 1.1% overall or 64,140 jobs in 2024, down from 3.6% growth in 2023. The finance, insurance & real estate (FIRE) industry added the most jobs, while the health care (+10.6%) and transportation, warehousing & wholesale (+7.9%) industries had the fastest growth in tech talent (Figure 1). The high-tech industry's tech talent workforce shrunk by 3.1% or 76,230 jobs, with about half of the losses in the manufacturing sector. AI-related jobs grew at the highest rate and quantity. Computer and information systems managers, which typically manage enterprise data and security systems, grew by 9.0% or 53,370 jobs in 2024. Software developers and programmers, another AI-related occupation, added 18,740 jobs. Most of these jobs were added by the FIRE and transportation, warehousing & wholesale industries that are using AI in business operations.

Canada added more tech talent jobs (66,600) at a faster rate (5.9%) than the U.S. did in 2024. The tech industry accounted for three-fourths of Canada’s job growth and grew about two times faster than the country’s total workforce overall.

1 See “Which markets have the most Tech Talent specializing in Artificial Intelligence?” section for further details.

Figure 1: U.S. & Canada Tech Talent Employment Growth by Industry (2024)

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Statistics Canada, May 2025.
* Excludes High-Tech.
** Includes computer software & services and computer product manufacturing.

U.S. tech talent employment grew by 1.1% overall or 64,140 jobs in 2024. AI-related jobs grew at the highest rate and quantity.

The share of AI-related job postings has doubled to 20% of available U.S. tech talent jobs as of June 2025.

When tech job postings peaked in mid-2022, AI-related jobs had an 11% share, based on data from labor analytics provider Lightcast (Figure 2A). In the San Francisco Bay Area—the AI revolution’s epicenter—AI-related job postings increased to a 42% share in June 2025 from 20% in mid-2022 (Figure 2B). While the number U.S. AI job postings in June was 26% below peak levels in early 2022, San Francisco Bay Area AI job postings hit a record 11,400.

Fully remote working arrangements for new jobs have declined, as most employers have adopted hybrid arrangements requiring tech talent to spend three or more days in the office. AI-related companies overwhelmingly require full-time in-office work. The San Francisco Bay Area saw remote work job postings drop to 10% as of June 2025 from 24% in mid-2022, well below the latest 16% share for all U.S. tech talent job postings.

AI is rapidly becoming a catalyst for growth, driving new tech talent hiring and office space demand. The San Francisco Bay Area has attracted 70% of AI venture capital funding nationwide since 2019, according to data from Pitchbook. One-sixth of U.S. AI-specialty talent currently works in the San Francisco Bay Area, while one-quarter of new office leases in downtown San Francisco since 2023 were signed by AI-related companies, based on data from LinkedIn Talent Insights and CBRE Research.

AI-related job growth is spreading across North America, boosting economic and real estate activity in many tech talent markets.

Figure 2A: U.S. AI-Specialty & Remote Share of Total Tech Talent Job Listings

FIG2A

Source: CBRE Consulting, Lightcast, July 2025.
Note: Remote share of computer and mathematical jobs that mention remote work as an option each month.

Figure 2B: SF Bay Area AI-Specialty & Remote Share of Total Tech Talent Job Listings

FIG2B

Source: CBRE Consulting, Lightcast, July 2025.
Note: Remote share of computer and mathematical jobs that mention remote work as an option each month.

Key Takeaways

  1. Score

    This year’s top-ranked tech talent markets are the San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, Toronto, New York Metro and Austin. Toronto replaced New York Metro in third place. Canada’s Waterloo Region entered the top 10 for the first time. The Waterloo Region, Edmonton, Orlando, Quebec City, Raleigh-Durham and Pittsburgh improved the most in rank.

  2. Artifical Intelligence

    Demand for computer and information systems managers that are foundational for AI development accounted for 83% of U.S. tech talent job growth last year. The tech talent workforce with AI-related skills grew by more than 50% year-over-year to 517,000. The San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle and New York Metro have the largest AI-specialty talent clusters in the U.S., while Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal have the largest such clusters in Canada. The tech industry employs the largest share of all AI-specialty talent, followed by the professional & business services and financial activities sectors.

  3. Jobs vs Education

    Dallas-Ft. Worth, Calgary, Toronto and the San Francisco Bay Area created substantially more tech jobs than college tech-degree graduates last year, while Washington, D.C., Boston and Los Angeles-Orange County produced more tech-degree graduates than tech jobs. The top job and education markets were determined by comparing tech talent job creation with the number of tech-degree graduates over the past three years.

  4. Diversity

    Tech talent across all industries was predominantly White, Asian and male relative to both the overall and office-using workforce. Hispanics, Blacks and females were underrepresented in both tech talent occupations and the tech industry, as well as concentrated in the lower-wage brackets. Canada’s tech talent workforce was more diverse than that of the U.S. but had a much smaller underrepresented share.

  5. Cost

    The total annual labor and real estate cost for the typical 500-person tech company occupying 60,000 sq. ft. of office space ranged from $35 million in Edmonton to $87 million in the San Francisco Bay Area. Since tech industry wages are 18% higher than the U.S. average, tech companies can expect higher annual costs.

  6. Opportunity Markets

    Fostering talent development in lesser-known markets could offer additional talent pools to employers seeking to expand their geographical reach, uncover opportunities and increase cost efficiency. These markets are spread across Canada, Latin America and the U.S. Huntsville, Halifax and Colorado Springs were the top-ranked emerging markets for tech talent in the U.S. and Canada, while Mexico City and Sao Paulo were the top-ranked in Latin America.

What is Tech Talent?

Highly skilled tech talent workers total 7.4 million in the U.S. and Canada and comprise more than 20 occupations.

Although these positions are spread across all industry sectors, they are mostly concentrated in the high-tech industry (Figure 3). Through this occupational lens, a software developer who works for a financial services or health-care company is considered tech talent.

The 6.2 million tech talent workers in the U.S. and 1.2 million in Canada accounted for a respective 4.0% and 6.6% of each country’s total workforce in 2024. The number of U.S. tech talent workers has increased by 670,000 or 12.2% since 2021, higher than the 8.0% rise in total U.S. employment. In Canada, tech talent grew by 163,000 or 15.7% vs 10.7% for overall employment since 2021. Most of the gains were for software developers and programmers and computer and information systems managers.

Figure 3: Tech Talent Workforce by Industry (2024)

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Statistics Canada, May 2025.
* Includes computer software & services and computer product manufacturing.
** Excludes High Tech.
Note: Due to data suppresion, the share of tech talent worforce by industry in Canada does not sum 100%. Management of Companies & Enterprises is included in the Other category for Canada.
The 6.2 million tech talent workers in the U.S. and 1.2 million in Canada accounted for a respective 4.0% and 6.6% of each country’s total workforce in 2024.

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Chapter 1 What are the top-ranked Tech Talent markets?