10 Hot Cities For IT Pros In 2015
Sure, Silicon Valley is a hotspot for tech workers. But it's far from the only one, according to top tech recruiters. See if your town makes the list.
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Need an IT job? Go west... or east, north, or south. Sure, Silicon Valley may be the technology epicenter of the US and beyond. But IT isn't confined to the technology industry itself, even if the region's established tech titans and countless startups do, in fact, employ droves of tech workers.
IT-related hiring is on the upswing across the country in 2015, which helps explain why some of the fastest growing cities for IT jobs are in places like Raleigh, N.C.; Hartford, Conn.; and Denver, Colo. Tech jobs site Dice recently shared with us year-over-year data (January 2014 to January 2015) on some of the hottest markets. Among metro areas with at least 500 jobs listed on Dice, these are the five regions that saw the greatest job-growth increases for the 12 months ending Jan. 31, 2015:
Raleigh, N.C. (23%)
Portland, Ore. (21%)
Hartford, Conn. (14%)
Washington/Baltimore (14%)
Silicon Valley (10%)
"With respect to Raleigh, Hartford, and many other cities, one of the key underlying drivers is that every company is turning to technology [and] leveraging mobile, social, big data, cloud, and security-related services," said Dice president Shravan Goli in an interview with InformationWeek.
Indeed, demand for IT pros with expertise in what recruiting firm Eliassen Group refers to as "SMAC" technologies -- social, mobile, analytics, and cloud -- is driving hiring growth in cities nationwide. "We are seeing that the mid-Atlantic region (Washington, Virginia, and Maryland), Colorado, and Texas are on the upswing for IT workers in 2015," Todd Collier, Eliassen Group VP for recruiting, told InformationWeek.
While the general sentiment among recruiters and hiring managers is that there will be widespread demand for some common technologies and skills -- security, mobile, big data, and cloud, to name the current heavyweights -- regardless of location, there will also be some regional nuances. Collier noted that there's a particularly strong demand for IT pros that work on consumer-facing mobile and Web applications in Eliassen's aforementioned hot markets. "In particular, our clients in those three regions are looking for UX and UI designers and developers and are paying substantial salaries for those who have a high degree of proficiency and capability," Collier said.
Similarly, while IT hiring demand is being driven by a wide range of industries -- not just the tech sector itself -- there are market differences, too. Texas, for example, has been home to tech scenes in several of its cities for quite some time, but other sectors have joined the hunt for IT talent there, too.
"The healthcare and finance industries are having a big moment in Dallas, with mobile, big data, and software development trending in the job market," said Laura McGarrity, VP of digital marketing at recruiting firm Mondo in an interview with InformationWeek.
Recent hiring surveys from the likes of Dice and industry association CompTIA should inspire some optimism among IT jobseekers -- almost regardless of location -- in the months ahead. Goli of Dice noted that his firm's most recent poll found three in four hiring managers plan to hire IT pros in early 2015 -- an all-time high in the recurring Dice survey.
"In general, tech is hot across all industries," Goli said. "Companies are eager to land top tech talent in a competitive marketplace with a narrow talent pool."
Read on for the 10 cities where IT hiring is heating up. No doubt, there are others, too, as employers, state and local governments, and grassroots organizations look to develop, attract, and retain IT talent in places like Chicago and New Orleans, cities haven't necessarily been synonymous with tech in the past. Don't see your town on this list? No worries -- tell us what's great (and not-so-great) about the IT scene your city in the comments section below.
Raleigh's downtown has been undergoing a commercial and residential makeover that includes a new 170,000-square-foot Citrix office. With Research Triangle Park (home to firms such as Lenovo, Cisco, and plenty of others), Durham, Chapel Hill, and three major universities all within shouting distance, the metro area has become fertile ground for IT job hunters. The area has seen a 23% year-over-year boost in tech hiring, according to Dice, which puts it tops on our list. Goli also pointed to the area's significant healthcare industry as a key growth factor.
"Healthcare IT is extremely popular right now, and Raleigh is populous with healthcare corporations and high-tech research facilities," he said.
(Image source: James Willamor)
Buoyed by a robust university scene and growing tech sector, Boston IT hiring rose 9% between January 2014 and January 2015, according to Dice. "Finance and insurance are big in IT growth in Boston, and will continue to be on the rise," said McGarrity of Mondo. "Security continues to dominate, and we've seen an uptick in security and software engineers and developers."
(Image source: Navaneeth KN)
From Baltimore to northern Virginia, with the nation's capital sandwiched between, the Washington metro area was one of the fastest growing IT job markets during the past year, with a 14% increase, according to Dice. The federal government is obviously a big reason for this, but there's plenty of private-sector hiring as well. Recruiters at both Eliassen and Mondo named it as one of their most in-demand markets early in 2015.
(Image source: Ted Eytan)
Portland's tech scene has become so substantial, Goli noted, that it has earned the nickname "Silicon Forest," with firms such as Intel, HP, Salesforce, and Yahoo! all running offices in the metro area. A growing number of startups and younger firms like Puppet Labs also call Portland home, which has helped fuel 21% year-over-year hiring growth, according to Dice jobs data.
"Portland is beginning to look more and more like its California counterpart, becoming a hotspot for high-tech companies," Goli said.
(Image source: Ian Sane)
Sun, surf, and IT jobs: The San Diego area saw 9% year-over-year growth in IT hiring, according to Dice, with an average annual salary $94,121, ninth-highest in the nation. (That will buy plenty of sunscreen.)
(Image source: peasap)
Texas saw statewide job growth in 2014 -- tops in the nation, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The Dallas metro area, in particular, appears poised to keep the momentum going in 2015, according to recruiters from Eliassen and Mondo.
(Image source: Michael Zanussi)
Recruiters at both Eliassen and Mondo picked Denver among their hottest IT hiring markets so far in 2015. It's one of the areas where application developers (mobile and Web) and UX/UI designers are in particularly high demand. Also of note: Denver is one of the better paying cities for IT pros, according to Dice, with an average annual salary of $94,940, eighth-highest in the country.
(Image source: Larry Johnson)
Seeing cities like Portland or Boston on this list might not surprise you. But Hartford? Actually, Dice's data points to 14% job growth there during the past 12 months, on par with Washington. "Hartford is a strong insurance and financial center, in part due to its close proximity to New York and Boston," Goli said. "Companies like Aetna, MassMutual, and Cigna all have offices [there]."
Atlanta offers a heavy presence of Fortune 500 companies, such as Home Depot and Delta Air Lines, and a well-established tech scene in its own right. The latter, as this Reddit thread noted, flies somewhat under the radar because it skews toward business-to-business technologies in areas such as security and finance. IT hiring rose 7% year-over-year there, according to Dice.
(Image source: D.L.)
You didn't think we'd forgotten about you, did ya? Yes, Silicon Valley is still the hotspot for tech jobs, even if the rest of the country has accelerated its hiring pace. And the traditional technology bastion is still growing, with a 10% year-over-year hiring increase, according to Dice. (Note: Dice does not use "Silicon Valley" and "Bay Area" interchangeably, as some do, so their numbers here exclude San Francisco and the East Bay and North Bay areas.) Silicon Valley also still boasts the highest average salary for IT pros of any metro area -- $112,610 per year -- according to Dice's most recent salary data, more than $12,000 higher than the next city (Seattle) in the top 10.
(Image source: Patrick Nouhailler)
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