Seattle leads nation in ‘brain gain,’ adds tech jobs faster than any other big U.S. market over 5 years

A full moon rises over the Seattle skyline. (GeekWire Photo / Kevin Lisota)

The Seattle area created more than 48,000 tech jobs from 2016 to 2020, an increase of more than 35% – faster than any other major US tech market, according to new analysis by real estate company CBRE.

The report confirms the meteoric growth of the region’s technology industry in the second half of the last decade. The trend was driven by the expansion of Silicon Valley tech outposts in the Seattle area, the extraordinary growth of Amazon, the revival of Microsoft, and the emergence of heavily funded, native startups, particularly in the cloud computing and enterprise technology sectors.

Only Toronto and Vancouver, BC, grew faster as technology markets in Canadian cities benefited from restrictive US immigration policies.

Although the report calls the market Seattle, CBRE confirmed that the statistics include the greater Seattle-Bellevue-Tacoma area.

Technology leaders and economic development officials across the continent are closely monitoring these trends as the industry and the world emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic and a new era of remote and hybrid work allows some technology workers to live farther from corporate offices.

Overall, Seattle overtook Washington, DC, finishing 2nd behind the San Francisco Bay Area in the overall CBRE rating, which identified the “depth, vitality, and appeal of each region for tech talent businesses and tech workers, who are looking for a job ”is assessed.

The report also looked at new technology-related college degrees related to the total tech jobs created in each region to determine if a market was able to retain the talent its universities produced. With this measure, Seattle achieved a high “brain gain” after Toronto.

CBRE graphic

Top tech talent doesn’t come cheap. According to the report, Seattle ranks second behind the San Francisco Bay Area in average wages; and third, behind the Bay Area and New York, in the total cost of running a technology company.

CBRE graphic. Click for a larger picture

As part of its assessment, the report also dealt with the overall diversity of the individual technology markets. Seattle was in the middle of the field and was not one of the most diverse or least diversified markets in terms of employment of women and underrepresented races and ethnic groups in the technology industry.

Check out the full Seattle CBRE scorecard below, including diversity stats.

Here is a larger PDF of the scorecard and the full report.

CBRE graphic. Click for larger PDF.