As Seattle has established itself as a so-called “superstar” city among established tech hubs, recent reports and data sets are shining a light on how the pandemic has helped other U.S. cities attract a growing share of tech talent.
A report from the Brookings Institution last week found that remote work has helped chip away, if only slightly, at the notion that all tech jobs must be concentrated in Seattle, the Bay Area, New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Austin or Washington, D.C.
According to Brookings, a distribution of tech jobs is being seen in emerging markets, including smaller towns, some of which the report refers to as “quality-of-life meccas” where amenities are key, or “zoom towns,” where tech work can be done remotely thanks to digital tools.
The persistent superstars, like Seattle, have remained that way, and still attract the majority of jobs, but data from LinkedIn tracking tech worker migration shows the potential rise of new hubs.
From February 2021 to January 2022, Miami saw a 30% increase in the net flow of jobs in software and IT services. Other sunny locales such as San Antonio, San Diego, Las Vegas, Orlando, Jacksonville and Houston were also in the top 10.
Maybe some of those sun-seekers have departed from Seattle, which at -17% was just ahead of Minneapolis (-18%) as the fastest shrinking cities in inflow-outflow ratio, according to LinkedIn.
LinkedIn defines a migration instance as a member changing their location on their LinkedIn profile.
Meanwhile, more data from Axios shows the potential for the Seattle area to replace anyone who might decide to take off. According to the Axios-Generation Lab Next Cities Index, which tracks rising U.S. work and culture trends through geographic preferences, Seattle is America’s most desired post-graduation destination for college students.
Axios cites the city’s “superstar tech-hub status, cool climate, green-energy embrace and music and art scene” in helping it eclipse such destinations as New York, L.A., Denver and Boston in the top five.
“It feels like a young-person city,” said a computer science major from Virginia looking to move to Seattle.