Tampa is Florida's top tech market

            Tampa ranks as the top tech-related market in Florida with more than 50,000 jobs in various technology industries, ahead of Orlando, Miami and Jacksonville, according to an annual survey by commercial real estate brokerage CBRE Group.

            The brokerage’s Scoring Tech Talent report lists Tampa as the 29th largest tech market in the nation, based on criteria such as supply of talent, growth in the number of tech jobs and costs associated with leasing office space and renting an apartment.

            Tampa scored 43.70 on a 100-point scale. Perhaps not surprisingly, the San Francisco Bay area ranked as the No. 1 tech market in the U.S., with a score of 82.56. Both rankings are unchanged from a year ago.

            In all, 52,150 jobs in the Tampa area are within various tech fields, a growth of 26.6% over the previous five years and a 6.2% hike from a year ago. Tampa also ranked as the eighth-fastest growing market for Millennials aged 22 to 36, with a 13.6% increase since 2013.

Tampa came in at No. 31 in measuring tech company expenses such as office rent and employee salaries, the report found. CBRE says the average salary for a tech employee in Tampa is $89,032 annually, more than double that of “non-technology” workers and a 14% gain from 2015.

Mike DiBlasi, the managing director of CBRE’s Tampa office, says the city also benefits from a relatively lower cost of living and operating than tech hubs like Seattle, Boston or Baltimore. Office space rental rates in Tampa average $23.21 per square foot, unchanged from a year ago.

In 2019, Tampa ranked as the nation’s top “small” tech market with just under 50,000 jobs tied to the tech industry.

CBRE notes the presence of a robust tech market is significant because such cities tend to have better educated populations and the industry’s higher salaries often have a positive impact on both residential real estate and the general economy.

In a post-COVID-19 economy, too, a strong tech sector may be a key to a quicker recovery.

“Markets that have strong innovation infrastructure – leading universities and high concentrations of tech jobs – will lead the next growth cycle,” says Colin Yasukochi, the executive director of CBRE’s tech insights center.