Report: Triangle ranks 6th for tech talent among HQ2 contenders, 4th for tech jobs

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK – A report breaking down the tech talent market among 50 major metropolitan areas has some good news for the Triangle when it comes to ranking Amazon HQ2 contenders.

The Skinny went inside the data compiled by commercial real estate firm CBRE to see how the Triangle rates in 15 categories of data, all of which are important to economic developers.

So here we go:

Raleigh-Durham ranks sixth among the 20 finalists for Amazon HQ2 players.
Its rank among HQ2 finalists for tech jobs is even better at fourth.
Further, if Amazon is worried about employee costs the Raleigh-Durham area comes in on the low side at No. 10 although salaries average $94,800.
And its tech work force is growing, ranking 8th in percentage of increase across the region’s labor force from 2012 to 2017.

Overall, the Triangle ranks eighth overall nationally, says commercial real estate firm CBRE.

Since Amazon has cited in its plans the need for a strong talent base, the survey would appear to be another positive data point for the Triangle as the due diligence of the Amazon decision process continues. (And let’s not forget the Apple campus project.)

The Triangle has scored both very well and very poorly in a wide variety of reports released during the HQ2 process. CBRE is a widely known and respected firm, so this information could be a help in the event Amazon and Apple have really not yet made up their collective corporate minds about where to grow.

Amazon has said a decision will be announced sometime this year. A cut down from 20 to a final group of three to five or so firms is expected sometime in the coming weeks.

As for Apple, the wait continues.

The HQ2 tiers

Interestingly, the CBRE survey data breaks the HQ2 finalists in two tiers, if you will.

Raleigh-Durham and nine others are closely grouped nationally from 3-12.

The second tier begins at 18th (Chicago) and ends with Miami (50th) in the last spot.

A good point for the Triangle: This is one of few surveys and studies released over the past year after the 50,000 job project was announced by Amazon that includes the Raleigh-Durham metropolitan area as one entity. Most have focused only on Raleigh even though Amazon clarified its initial announcement that Raleigh as a finalist actually included the entire Triangle.

Raleigh-Cary and Durham-Chapel Hill are considered separate metropolitan areas by the federal government, leading to confusion as to what statistics and demographic data actually make up the market that Amazon as well as Apple are considering for expansion projects.

Leaders of the pack

Among the HQ2 finalists, the Washington D.C. area ranks No. 1 followed by Toronto.

Nationally, the Sfrancisco Bay Area is cited as the top tech market followed by Amazon’s home city of Seattle.

Amazon has declared Washington, D.C. and Northern Virginia as separate finalists but statistics for the two regions were not broken out separately in the CRBE report so this list cites 19 total.

The 19 with their national ranking in parenthesis:

No.3, New York (5)

No. 4: Austin Texas (6)

No. 5: Boston (7)

No. 6: Raleigh-Durham (8)

No. 7: Atlanta (9)

No. 8: Denver (10)

No. 9. Baltimore (11)

No. 10: Dallas-Fort Worth (12)

No. 11: Chicago (18)

No. 12: Columbus, Ohio (23)

No. 13: Philadelphia (24)