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New York Overtakes San Francisco as Top Tech Talent Market, CBRE Finds

New York has overtaken San Francisco as the country's largest tech talent market for the first time in the 13-year history of CBRE's "Scoring Tech Talent" report, according to Commercial Observer. The New York metro area's tech workforce reached 394,300 jobs in 2025, edging past the San Francisco Bay Area's 375,730.

The shift reflects diverging trajectories rather than a single dramatic event. New York's tech talent pool grew more than 8% from 2022 to 2025, adding roughly 30,640 jobs, while the Bay Area's workforce shrank about 6% over the same stretch, per Yahoo Finance.

Colin Yasukochi, executive director of CBRE's Tech Insights Center, told Commercial Observer that layoffs did more to reshape the rankings than New York's own growth alone: "What really pushed New York past the San Francisco Bay Area has been the job reductions that we've seen [in San Francisco], with a lot of the announced layoffs, and the fact that New York has continued to grow."

A big driver of New York's gains is where its tech workers actually sit. In San Francisco, 61% of tech talent works directly inside the tech industry. In New York, that figure is just 34%, with 21% of tech workers employed in finance, insurance and real estate — sectors that have been early, aggressive adopters of AI tools and are now hiring technologists to build and manage them.

That said, San Francisco hasn't lost its edge across every measure. When CBRE factors in average salary, rental costs and the local pipeline of tech graduates, the Bay Area still ranks first overall, with New York in fourth. CBRE's Lauren Crowley Corrinet described New York's broader appeal in a statement to Commercial Observer, saying the region "combines a robust pipeline of graduates with a growing concentration of AI talent and sustained job creation, making it one of North America's most attractive locations for technology companies."

What this means for job seekers

The headline number — New York's workforce edging past San Francisco's — matters less than the pattern behind it. If your search strategy is built around Bay Area zip codes because "that's where tech jobs are," it's worth widening the map, especially if your background touches finance, insurance or real estate. New York's AI-adjacent hiring is increasingly happening inside those industries, not just at software companies, which opens doors for candidates who can pair domain knowledge in a regulated industry with AI or data skills.

It's also a reminder that "top tech market" isn't one ranking. San Francisco still leads on pay, graduate pipeline and overall CBRE score, so a total-comp calculation that only looks at job counts will miss real cost-of-living and salary tradeoffs between the two metros. For anyone weighing a relocation, that means running your own numbers on rent, salary bands and commute before assuming either city is automatically the better move.

Finally, layoffs — not just hiring — are shaping these rankings. San Francisco's decline came largely from job cuts, not New York poaching talent outright. That's a signal to watch employer stability and recent layoff history at target companies as closely as posted openings, regardless of which city you're searching in.