While the states with the most tech jobs remained largely unchanged in September, many saw slippage in the number of job postings. At the same time, states usually considered outliers gained ground with the rise in remote work.
With the technology job market riding high and industry unemployment rates close to half that of the overall US, new data from CompTIA, a nonprofit association for the IT industry and workforce, shows the best states for knowledge workers.
CompTIA bases its data on the monthly US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) employment reports.
The top five states in September include California (with 35,947 tech job openings); Texas (27,284 openings); New York (16,142); Virginia (15,280); and Florida (14,015). Illinois was a close sixth, with 13,714 tech job postings. While those states all reported fewer openings in September than August, according to CompTIA, each still reported near record levels of tech jobs.
The top metropolitan areas for tech positions include: New York City (19,933 jobs); Washington DC (16,985 jobs); Dallas (12,279 jobs); Chicago (10,941 jobs); and Los Angeles (10,848 jobs). With the exception of Atlanta, GA, the top 10 metro areas for tech postings also lost jobs over the past two months. New York City, for example saw nearly 3,000 fewer jobs in September than August. Dallas also saw its job number drop by more than 2,000.
Overall, companies added 25,500 technology workers across the US in September, according to the latest data from the BLS. The unemployment rate for technology occupations in September was 2.1%, down slightly from 2.3% in August. But that unemployment remains significantly lower than the national unemployment rate for all occupations, which is 3.5%.
“Stability in tech hiring continues to be an over-arching theme this year,” CompTIA Chief Research Officer Tim Herbert said. “Despite all the economic noise and pockets of layoffs, aggregate tech hiring remains consistently positive.”
And it’s expected to remain strong over the next few years. The BLS predicts overall employment in computer and information technology occupations is projected to grow 15 percent between 2021 and 2031.
More remote areas see an increase in tech job openings
In contrast to large metropolitan areas that have seen fewer tech job offerings, more remote metropolitan areas, such as Wichita, KS., Little Rock, AR, and Dover, DE., all saw growth, according to CompTIA.
Cost of living, business environment and “livability” were all contributing factors to the acceleration in growth in tech employment options in cities and regions outside traditional tech hubs, according to Nancy Hammervik, chief solutions officer at CompTIA.
“It’s rarely just one or two factors, but rather a confluence of contributing factors,” she said. “In a 2021 CompTIA IT Career Insights survey, one in four IT pros cite job flexibility in work hours or location as a driver for initially seeking a career in IT. The pandemic introduced a new variable with work from home and hybrid work arrangements, which undoubtedly influenced tech employment in many metros.”
Given the current state of the economy, cost of living may take on greater importance, according to Hammervik, with workers looking to live and work in areas where their “tech dollar” goes farther. For example, Mobile, AL. instead of San Francisco.
“Beyond economic considerations, tech pros often seek out organizations that are innovative and progressive, that leverage emerging technologies that allow them to work on exciting new projects and that invest in upskilling their employees, offering continued learning and training opportunities to build their skills,” Hammervik said.
Workplace studies conducted by CompTIA and other organizations in recent years showed that employees — including tech workers — have different requirements from their employers in how they approach post-pandemic normalcy, according to Hammervik. Some, for example, want to remain 100% remote; others prefer to combine remote and in-office work; and still others seek other, flexible arrangements that capitalize on the fact technology enables them to work from anywhere.
Another factor that has been trending, Hammervik said, is that while major tech hubs such as Silicon Valley remain the largest sources of venture capital concentration, new funding mechanisms and new tech ecosystems have opened opportunities to launch and grow a tech startup in any number of metro areas.
“Perhaps years ago, a promising tech startup spun out of a state university in the middle of America may have felt the need to relocate to Silicon Valley. Today, that firm may feel confident in scaling their business from where they started,” Hammervik said.
Remote work gains popularity
Last year, Gartner had predicted 31% of all workers worldwide would be remote (either hybrid and fully remote) in 2022. But a more recent Adaptavist survey found 43% working hybrid or fully remotely — with an even greater number wanting more say in where they work (59%), the structure of their work week, and the way productivity is measured.
At the beginning of 2022, about 45% of US employees were working fully remote, according to a January survey by Statista. That represents a dramatic increase from the 17% percent of US employees who worked from home five days or more per week before the pandemic, per Statista.
According to the latest Future Workforce Report from remote work job search site Upwork (based on BLS data):
- In 2022, 25% of the workforce, or 38 million Americans, are currently remote first or mostly remote.
- In 2022, 21% of the workforce, or 32 million Americans, are partly remote and partly on site.
- In 2022, 54% of the workforce, or 82 million Americans, are on site.
According to UpWork, the top remote work positions are:
- Software developers
- WordPress developer
- QA tester
- Graphic designer
- Logo designer
- Presentation designer
- Video editor
- Social media manager
- Marketing manager
- Content strategist
