A new report that highlights tech job growth and talent levels in North American cities has ranked Vancouver highly.
The ranking is based on the latest CBRE Scoring Tech Talent report.
While Vancouver ranked at number 10 in North America overall, it was bested by both Toronto (#3) and the Waterloo Region (#7).
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CBRE reports that there are 125,100 people employed in tech occupations in Vancouver, with the majority being software developers and programmers (60,400). Some of the data in CBRE’s report comes from Statistics Canada, namely wages.
The average wage for Vancouver tech employees in 2024 was $114,192, representing a 21 per cent increase since 2021.
One of the reasons that Vancouver lags behind Toronto is the amount of talent in artificial intelligence. CBRE reports that there are 8,300 people in AI in Vancouver, compared to a talent pool of around 24,000 in Toronto, which ranks the home of the Maple Leafs #4 overall among North American cities.
“Artificial intelligence is a transformative technology that is rapidly reshaping the employment landscape across the world, particularly in Canada, which has three of the Top 10 largest AI talent pools in North America in Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal,” CBRE Canada Chairman Paul Morassutt said in a statement.
Based on all the metrics it considers, CBRE gives Vancouver an overall composite score of 61.53. The number one-ranked San Francisco Bay Area has a score of 83.69, while Toronto has a score of 68.48.
Vancouver saw a slight increase compared to last year’s ranking, when it was the 11th best city in North America for tech talent.
Another consideration in the CBRE report is office rent and vacancy trends. Vancouver has seen a slight dip in rent and a slight increase in vacancies compared to last year.
CBRE
Another key finding of the report is the top five industries employing the tech workforce in Vancouver. Core high-tech is the top sector by far, followed by professional services, retail, jobs in finance, insurance, or real estate, and government-related jobs.
CBRE
CBRE says AI is on the rise, and the report suggests that continued growth in that sector could lead to bigger office demand and “could be a catalyst for another growth cycle among office-using companies, boosting the office market’s recovery.”