CBRE’s Scoring Tech Talent report also ranks Seattle as the top market for educational attainment and millennial population growth and the second highest quality workforce
LOS ANGELES, Calif. (July 18, 2017) – Seattle moved up one spot to #2 on CBRE’s Tech Talent Scorecard, behind only the San Francisco Bay Area on the list of the top 50 markets for attracting and growing tech talent in the U.S. and Canada. Fueling Seattle’s rise on the Scorecard, which is part of CBRE’s fifth annual Scoring Tech Talent Report, was the strong growth of its tech labor pool, which expanded by 33.4 percent from 2011 to 2016.
The report, which can be viewed in detail by market in the interactive Tech Talent Analyzer, finds that strong demand for talent that offer specific skills, such as software development, hardware engineering and information security, coupled with a tight labor supply, is driving companies to locate in markets with the largest concentrations of high quality talent. And while value is a key driver when it comes to choosing an office location, companies are showing that they are willing to pay a premium to access the highest quality tech talent and Seattle is one of those markets with the second highest talent quality.
“Since the cost of talent is the largest expense for most firms, the quality of that tech talent is becoming one of their most important considerations. The skills of the available labor pool do not appear to align with available jobs, causing a structural impediment to growth for companies across North America,” said Colin Yasukochi, director of research and analysis for CBRE and the report’s author.
Tech Talent Scorecard
The top 10-ranked cities on the Tech Talent Scorecard were all large markets, each with a tech labor pool of more than 50,000. The San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, New York, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Toronto, Raleigh-Durham, Austin, Boston and Dallas/Ft. Worth made up the top 10.
The rankings for the Tech Talent Scorecard are determined based on 13 unique metrics including tech talent supply, growth, concentration, cost, completed tech degrees, industry outlook for job growth, and market outlook for both office and apartment rent cost growth.
Helping to elevate its ranking on the Scorecard, Seattle stood out in the report in a number of key areas:
• With a rate of nearly 60 percent, Seattle was the top market for educational attainment.
• Seattle was the top-ranked large market (by percent change) for millennial population change, growing its millennial pool 16.6 percent from 2010 to 2015.
• Seattle stands out as a strong tech-job creator and tech talent attractor, with 22,217 more tech jobs than graduates, behind only the San Francisco Bay Area and Dallas/Ft. Worth.
• Seattle’s tech jobs make up 8.6 percent of the market’s total jobs, behind only the San Francisco Bay Area.
• Seattle’s office rents increased 26 percent to $31.91 and its vacancy rate decreased 5.5 percentage points to 11.7 percent from Q1 2012 to Q1 2017.
“With the number of projects and moves on the horizon and a clear desire from both tech workers and corporations that are either willing to move or expand here, Seattle continues to be a desirable market for technology companies nationwide, driven by both the jobs that are being created in the market and the strong talent base coming out of the region,” said Matt Walters, First Vice President with CBRE’s Technology and Media Practice Group in Seattle.
Brian Biege, First Vice President and member of CBRE’s Technology and Media Practice Group based out of CBRE’s Bellevue office, agrees. “Although rental rates in core submarkets in the region have gone up, it’s clear that, dollar-for-dollar, Seattle continues to offer more options than some of the other large technology hubs across the nation.”
To view the full report, please visit http://www.cbre.us/research-and-reports/Scoring-Tech-Talent-2017. To view individual markets statistics and rankings, including rankings on the Scorecard, click to access the Tech Talent Analyzer.
About CBRE Group, Inc.
CBRE Group, Inc. (NYSE:CBG), a Fortune 500 and S&P 500 company headquartered in Los Angeles, is the world’s largest commercial real estate services and investment firm (based on 2016 revenue). The company has more than 75,000 employees (excluding affiliates), and serves real estate investors and occupiers through approximately 450 offices (excluding affiliates) worldwide. CBRE offers a broad range of integrated services, including facilities, transaction and project management; property management; investment management; appraisal and valuation; property leasing; strategic consulting; property sales; mortgage services and development services. Please visit our website at www.cbre.com.
