San Francisco Bay Area dethroned as largest ‘tech talent’ market
The San Francisco Bay Area, epicenter of the artificial intelligence boom, is home to a massive amount of tech workers employed by some of the world’s most valuable companies, from Apple to Nvidia.
But for the first time, New York has eclipsed the Bay Area as the home of the largest “tech talent workforce,” a report by real estate and investment firm CBRE shows. The firm has published the annual report for 13 years.
Last year, the New York Metro Area’s tech talent workforce reached 394,300, surpassing the Bay Area’s 375,730, according to the report. Fueled by mass layoffs, the Bay Area’s tech talent workforce dropped by 6% from 2022 to 2025. New York’s tech talent workforce, on the other hand, grew by more than 8% during that period.
Tech talent workers include highly skilled workers in more than 20 technology-oriented jobs, employed in industries such as healthcare, financial services, government and more, according to CBRE.
The growth of New York’s tech talent highlights how tech workers are spilling into other industries and cities as Silicon Valley companies lay off workers. Companies including Meta, Block and Amazon continue to cut workers as they focus more on AI investments.
“The Bay Area is likely to remain … the central location for the AI industry and for innovation. But as we’ve seen during past cycles, as it tends to grow, that spreads out to all the key markets,” Colin Yasukochi, executive director of CBRE’s Tech Insights Center, said during a news conference Tuesday.
New York has gained tech workers in the financial services sector, which was an early adopter of artificial intelligence, said Lauren Crowley Corrinet, vice chairman of CBRE’s Consulting Group in New York. Meanwhile, AI startups have popped up in the Midtown South neighborhood and other areas.
New York has a transit-rich environment, making it an attractive place for companies to purchase new office space and workers to live in.
“The size of the market, just the sheer scale of it, really does support both the early stage growth, but also that ability to just scale fast,” she said.
In California, some cities grew their tech talent workforce. Sacramento’s tech talent workforce grew more than 8% from 2022 to 2025, reaching 42,970.
Los Angeles and Orange County’s tech workforce totaled 227,350 last year, up by less than 1% compared to 2022. Toronto, Washington, D.C. and Dallas-Forth Worth all had more tech talent.
CBRE looked at other factors beyond the size of a metro area’s tech talent workforce, such as average salary, rental prices and tech graduates, to rank the markets on a scorecard. The Bay Area still is at the top while New York is fourth. Los Angeles is ranked No. 18.
The drop in tech talent in the Bay Area comes as workers grow more worried that AI could lead to fewer jobs.
Roughly 71% of adults think AI will lead to fewer jobs in the United States over the next two decades, up from 64% in 2024, according to a survey released by the Pew Research Center on Tuesday.
While tech executives such as Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg have an optimistic outlook on the future of AI, they’ve also acknowledged that company sizes could shrink. But AI also could create new jobs.
The U.S. high-tech industry still is filling AI-related roles including data scientists and hardware engineers, according to CBRE. It remains to be seen whether hiring will outpace cuts, though CBRE executives also appeared optimistic.
“My expectation is that these jobs are going to continue to grow as companies, not only tech companies, start to figure out how they’re going to implement AI into their businesses,” Yasukochi said.
