D.C. is the third-best city for tech talent in the U.S and Canada, according to a new report from commercial real estate firm CBRE.
The District falls only behind the Bay Area and Seattle on the ranking, which uses 13 metrics to measure a market's depth, vitality and attractiveness. Rounding out the top five are Toronto and New York.
CBRE examined tech job growth in 50 cities across the U.S. and Canada, ranking markets by both overall tech talent and rate of job growth. It measured job growth by looking at the rate of jobs added during 2016 and 2017 compared to the prior two years.
With 248,000 employees in tech, D.C. is also the third-largest region, behind the Bay Area (329,000) and New York (254,000). Despite the size, the District's tech labor pool declined by 1.3 percent since 2012, losing 3,200 positions.
The report says 8 percent of D.C.'s jobs are filled by tech talent, for whom the average wage is $111,000 – making it a top-five market in that aspect.
More than 10,000 people received technology degrees here in 2016, the second-most in the U.S., but CBRE's "brain drain" measurement shows a side effect: D.C. has 48,000 more tech degree graduates than tech jobs, according to the report.
You can read the full study here.
