DALLAS – Austin has ranked seventh overall in CBRE’s 2021 Scoring Tech Talent report.
Dallas-Fort Worth was also in the top 20, ranking 13th. Houston was 39th.
The Texas Capital has a tech talent labor pool of 79,230, up 10 percent from 2015. That is approximately 7.5 percent of its overall labor force, the eighth-highest among large U.S. tech talent markets.
Austin produced more tech graduates (12,962) than new tech jobs (7,200) in the past four years. That means ample talent supply becomes available each year for workforce growth.
Software developers and programmers accounted for 38.7 percent of the total tech talent with an average wage of $105,404 in 2020. That ranks Austin eighth for the concentration and 17th for average wage among large tech markets.
Austin is the 22nd most expensive among the top 50 tech-talent markets, with the tenth highest office rent growth over the past five years (24 percent).
Annual operating costs for a 500-person tech company occupying 75,000 sf in Austin amount to $45.7 million.
Austin offers affordable living for tech-talent workers, with the average monthly apartment rent amounting to $1,259 in 2020, representing 16 percent of a tech worker’s salary.
The Texas Real Estate Research Center has a wealth of economic information online for free.