To home in on these alternate tech hubs, Indeed’s researchers mined job listings within the 51 largest metros in the U.S. They looked at the proportion of tech job listings for each local area, and in this case, San Jose, CA—the heart of Silicon Valley—still reigns supreme, with 19% of its local job postings in tech.
But researchers also looked at each city’s share of tech job postings nationwide—how big a piece of the tech pie they have overall—and whether that slice is growing or shrinking. Viewed this way, San Jose’s status seems to be sinking, since its share of the nation’s tech jobs dropped nearly 6% from the first half of 2016 to 2017.
Next question, if Silicon Valley is 100, which city is closest to SV in terms of job mix? Not surprisingly, SF is the closest, at 83%. The next batch, at 75% dish, include Boston, Austin, Seattle, Boulder and Portland.
Which area have the most jobs in fast growing areas like computer vision and machine learning? 16% of SV and 15% of SF job positions are in these areas. 12% for Austin and Seattle. But in terms of pay, fully 57% of Seattle jobs are highly paid, defined as over 100K salary. That even beats the Bay Area.
Austin ranks no. 3 on the Tech Town Index and has a cost of living 3.5 percent lower than the national average—earn a median tech salary of $82,285, which stretches further as Texas is one of seven states that does not collect state income tax. Additionally, IT jobs are plentiful in Austin, with more than 37,000 tech jobs posted in the last year, and that number is expected to surge 15 percent over the next 5 years, rivaling the Bay Area in terms of projected growth.
