California may continue to hold the lion’s share of tech jobs in the U.S., but other states are seeing a promising rate of growth in their tech industries.
A report out today from nonprofit IT trade association CompTIA finds the states that saw the largest percentage increase in the number of tech jobs from the end of 2016 to the end of 2017 were, in order: Utah, North Carolina, and Michigan, each of which saw a more than 3 percent bump.
CompTIA pulled data from sources that include the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. The 51 occupations classified in the report as “tech jobs” range from web developer to database administrator.
The two other states with the highest year-over-year percent increases were Washington and Idaho, at 2.9 and 2.8 percent, respectively.
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When looking at the total number of tech jobs added between 2016 and 2017, California still comes out on top, with 43,600. The other four states that added the most jobs were Texas (13,400 jobs added), Michigan (13,200), Florida (12,000), and New York (10,400).
Accounting for nearly 25 percent of the tech sector payroll in the U.S., California has a sizeable impact on other measures of the tech industry’s growth and health. According to the report, when California is excluded, the national average tech sector wage drops from $112,900 to $102,800.
Still, 38 states experienced tech job employment gains in 2017, indicating — as other data has shown — that the tech industry is powering employment growth in many parts of the country outside of Silicon Valley. And it’s not just a one-year phenomenon driven by more companies looking to hire from outside the Valley — from 2011 to 2017, 43 states saw an increase in the number of tech jobs.
