Technology-related employment increased in 44 states in 2021, according to a new report released this week, and Dallas is the top metro area in the country for net tech employment job gains.
CompTIA's "State of the Tech Workforce" shows that employment increased by approximately 80,000 workers in 2021, a positive gain over the flat performance in 2020. Nearly 8.7 million people work in core tech-related occupations in the United States, and tech industry accounts for 9.3% of direct value in the U.S. economy – more than $1.8 trillion.
CompTIA estimates a 2% increase – nearly 178,000 new jobs – in 2022, with 48 states projected to add tech workers. Data scientists and analysts (4.3%), cybersecurity professionals (4%), software developers (3.9%), and computer and information research scientists (3.5%) lead the list of occupations expected to see strong growth in 2022.
"The data speaks to the ever-evolving tech workforce and its far-reaching impact across the national, state and metro area economies," Tim Herbert, chief research officer at CompTIA, said in the release. "As always, the results are impressive but also a reminder of the collective effort of workers, employers, educators and industry and government organizations to build and sustain a healthy, dynamic tech workforce."
At the metro level, employers in the Dallas-Fort-Worth-Arlington region added more technology workers (5,321) than any other market in the country. That total was more than double that of the next closest market, Seattle, where 2,651 tech jobs were added.
Texas (+10,851 new jobs) and Florida (+10,522) outpaced all other states in tech job gains in 2021, followed by California (+5,165), North Carolina (+5,004) and Washington (+4,469).
Dallas also led in the Diversity Index Quartile comparison when comparing MSAs across the country. There are several approaches to assessing labor force characteristics. This index weights two key facets of race and ethnicity within the workforce – richness and evenness (or think of it as depth and breadth) and reflects it in a single metric.
Overall, DFW has a net tech employment of 313,447 for 2021, the sixth-highest total in the country. Of that total number, 65,542 are employed as software, programmers, web and QA. And that number is expected to grow by 4.3% this year.
The study estimates that North Texas will add 7,691 technology jobs in 2022, increasing 2.5%. The estimated median tech wage was $97,454, which is 129% higher than the overall median wage for the metro area.
