With the addition of more than 5,000 new tech jobs in 2022, Arizona ranks No. 16 in the nation for net jobs added and No. 17 for net employment overall — and its growth is expected to accelerate in the coming years.
These findings were part of the State of the Tech Workforce report recently released by IT training organization CompTIA.
The Grand Canyon State is projected to have one of the largest leaps in tech employment over the next decade. It is expected to see 24% more jobs created in the tech sector between now and 2033, giving it the sixth-highest projected growth rate in the nation, behind Utah (32%), Wyoming (29%), Texas (27%), Tennessee (26%) and Mississippi (25%).
Arizona’s growth rate for tech jobs was 2.6% in 2022, with a total of 5,077 workers added, CompTIA said, adding that the growth rate is expected to increase to 3.3% in 2023. That’s 6,677 new jobs for the state, with the biggest growth likely in software, web development, database, data science, cybersecurity, systems engineering and IT project management, the report said.
More than 3,000 of Arizona’s new tech jobs in 2022 were in the Phoenix metro, and more than 4,700 are expected to be added in the Valley this year for 2.9% projected growth. Phoenix ranked 12 among metros for net tech employment and was 14th for jobs added.
The report mentioned Phoenix as a “sometimes ‘under the radar’ tech city” — along with Raleigh, Charlotte, Detroit, Orlando and others — that are showing sizable tech workforces and notable job gain rates.
The average growth rate across the country was 3.2%, CompTIA said. Overall, the U.S. added 272,323 tech jobs.
Overall, the report figured Arizona’s total technology workforce to be 201,183 people. CompTIA counts all people who work at tech companies — whether technical or nontechnical — as well as tech professionals who work in other industries to come up with its numbers.
More high-paying Arizona jobs created in emerging technologies
In a review of the 105,107 Arizona job postings in IT in 2022, CompTIA found that more than 27% of them were for positions related to emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, the internet of things, robotics and more.
In Arizona, tech workers’ median wage of $88,355 is 115% higher than the median wage for all occupations in the state, CompTIA said.
One area where Arizona stood out was in the report’s diversity index, which measured tech workforce diversity for seven racial and ethnic groups as defined by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That review found that 26% of the tech workforce was female, 15% Hispanic or Latino and 4% African American.
Tech workers accounted for 6.2% of the overall Arizona workforce, but their economic impact — at $33.4 billion — was gauged to be 8.2% of the overall impact in the state. In the Valley, they were 6.8% of the overall workforce accounting for 9.3% — or $29.4 billion — of the overall economic impact.
“The data continues to confirm the degree to which technology underpins so many facets of business activity across the economy and the breadth of employers reliant on technical and digital skills," Tim Herbert, chief research officer for CompTIA, said in a statement.
Texas ranked the highest nationwide for numerical job growth, with more than 45,000 net new jobs, followed by California, Florida, New York, Washington, Georgia, Colorado, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Illinois to round out the top 10.
