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Seattle ranked No. 2 among North American tech-talent markets in CBRE’s Scoring Tech Talent 2023, behind the San Francisco Bay Area. The ranking reflected the size, growth, concentration and characteristics of the region’s technical workforce—not a count of current job openings. At the same time, CBRE found that technology-company job postings had fallen sharply. Both findings can be true: a market can have a deep, growing base of skilled workers while employers slow new recruiting.
The distinction matters to workers weighing Seattle’s job prospects and to employers considering the region. The figures below describe CBRE’s 2023 report, based mainly on data through 2022; they do not establish Seattle’s ranking or hiring conditions in 2026.
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What CBRE’s No. 2 ranking measured
CBRE’s July 2023 report ranked 75 North American markets, with its main list covering the top 50 U.S. and Canadian markets. Seattle placed second, after the San Francisco Bay Area and ahead of New York Metro, Washington, D.C., and Toronto. The ranking combined measures of tech-talent supply, concentration, growth, education, wages and other market characteristics. It was not a league table of open positions or technology-company headcount. CBRE’s report announcement describes the broader analysis.
CBRE defines tech talent through 20 technology occupations, including software engineers and systems and data managers. The definition follows the worker’s occupation, not just the employer’s industry: a software engineer at a hospital, bank, retailer, aerospace company or government contractor can count. That makes “tech talent” broader than employees of Amazon, Microsoft, Google and other technology firms. CBRE’s explanation of the occupational definition makes that distinction explicit.
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Seattle in the report’s numbers
- 194,040 tech-talent workers: CBRE’s Seattle-market estimate for 2022. This is not a current 2026 headcount, nor a count of everyone employed by Seattle-area technology companies.
- 28.6% growth from 2017 to 2022: An increase of about 44,020 workers. CBRE rounds some table values, so rounded presentations may show 29%.
- $172,009 average annual wage: This was the average for tech talent employed by technology companies in Seattle, the second-highest figure in the report after the San Francisco Bay Area’s $185,425. It is not the median or the typical salary of every Seattle technologist.
- 76.4% of software engineers worked in the technology industry: Seattle ranked second on this measure, just behind San Francisco at 76.6%. The occupation-wide talent definition is broader, but this figure shows how closely software engineering was tied to technology employers in Seattle.
- Jobs and education: Seattle added about 43,190 tech jobs from 2018 to 2022 and produced roughly 23,094 tech degrees from 2017 to 2021—a positive difference of about 20,096. CBRE also reported that 46.8% of Seattle adults had a bachelor’s degree or higher.
- A younger workforce base: The region’s population in its 30s grew 14% from 2016 to 2021, a demographic group strongly represented in technology work.
The report’s market table and Seattle figures are available in CBRE’s 2023 report; CBRE also summarizes Seattle’s position in its Seattle ranking brief. Seattle’s strength was the combination of workforce scale, growth, education, wages and concentration—not the largest absolute workforce. Several markets had more tech talent by headcount.
What “hiring slowed” meant
CBRE’s slowdown evidence was principally about postings and recruiting demand, not proof that the existing tech workforce had suddenly disappeared. Its analysis found that U.S. tech-talent employment grew 7.3% from May 2021 to May 2022, faster than total U.S. employment, which grew 5% over the same period. That employment measure describes people already working in qualifying occupations; postings are a signal of employers’ efforts to recruit additional workers.
U.S. technology job postings fell from roughly 900,000 at their mid-2022 peak to about 450,000 by early 2023. In CBRE’s analysis of Lightcast data, postings from large technology companies declined 86% between June 2022 and February 2023. Postings from large nontechnology employers declined 42% between November 2022 and February 2023. The comparison uses different starting dates, so the percentages should not be read as a head-to-head measure over an identical period.
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By June 2023, CBRE counted approximately 43,008 postings from nontechnology employers, compared with about 9,919 from technology employers. In May 2023, remote roles made up about 20% of 593,000 tech-talent postings. Those figures show that demand was not confined to conventional tech companies, and that remote work was a meaningful part of the market. They do not show how many postings became hires or how many positions remained open.
Layoffs are another separate measure. A company can cut staff while keeping selected roles open, and layoffs can include recruiting, sales, marketing, finance and other jobs—not only technical occupations. CBRE said roughly one-quarter of layoffs it analyzed targeted tech talent, with the rest involving other functions. A drop in postings is therefore not the same thing as an equivalent drop in employment, and a headline layoff total is not a count of displaced engineers.
Why a strong talent ranking and slower hiring can coexist
A ranking based on the workforce and its underlying market characteristics can remain high even when employers reduce recruiting. The stock of people already employed in technical occupations changes more slowly than the flow of new job advertisements. In Seattle, years of hiring had created a large base of experienced workers, while universities and other institutions continued to produce graduates. Strong employer networks and adjacent industries added to that depth.
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When technology companies pause hiring or reduce headcount, some workers may become available to other employers. Hospitals, financial firms, retailers, manufacturers, logistics businesses, professional-services firms and public agencies all need software, data, cybersecurity and infrastructure expertise. CBRE’s interpretation was that reduced tech-company hiring could create opportunities for nontechnology employers to recruit from that talent pool. That is a possibility, not a guarantee: workers’ specialties, location preferences, compensation expectations and the timing of openings still determine whether a particular employer can hire them.
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The same strength has a cost side. High wages can help attract workers and signal demand, but they also raise payroll requirements for employers. Housing costs and commuting expenses affect whether workers can afford to remain in the region. A large pool in aggregate does not mean that a company can readily find a specialist in a narrow field, or that a job seeker will find a suitable role quickly.
What the ranking can—and cannot—tell workers
For a worker considering Seattle, the report is evidence of a substantial technical labor market in the period it measured, not a promise of abundant openings today. Start with the role and employer type: a position at a technology company may face a different hiring cycle from a technical job at a bank, hospital, retailer or manufacturer. Then weigh likely compensation against housing, taxes, transportation, health care and childcare costs, and check whether remote or hybrid arrangements are actually available for the role.
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Remote work can widen the options for both workers and employers, but it can also expose a Seattle-based applicant to competition from candidates elsewhere. A broad market-level ranking does not capture employer concentration risk either. A region can have many technical workers while remaining exposed to decisions by a handful of large companies. For a personal-finance decision, consider savings runway, relocation costs, benefits and the stability of the specific employer—not just the city’s rank.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What employers and regional planners should take from it
For employers, Seattle’s reported talent depth can support recruiting in software, data, cloud, cybersecurity and related fields. But the total worker count is only a starting point. A hiring plan should assess specialized skills, experience level, compensation, local office costs, remote-work policies, university pipelines and retention risks. Companies may find candidates in adjacent industries rather than competing only with the region’s largest technology employers.
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Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFix Now →Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →For commercial real-estate analysts, a strong talent market can support expansion and office demand, but it does not guarantee high occupancy. Hybrid work and headcount reductions weaken any simple link between the concentration of skilled workers and demand for office space. For policymakers, the figures point to the value of education, workforce development, housing and transit, while also raising the question of whether workers across income levels can afford to stay in the region.
Read the date and geography carefully
“Seattle” in this report refers to the Seattle market, a metropolitan labor-market geography rather than Seattle city limits alone. The statistics also come from different periods: workforce size and growth largely describe 2022; degree totals cover 2017–2021; demographic change covers 2016–2021; and posting trends extend into 2023. These measures should not be treated as if they were all collected in the same year.
Most importantly, the ranking is a historical finding from CBRE’s 2023 report. It does not establish Seattle’s position in a later edition or describe conditions in 2026. Rankings can change with market boundaries, methodology and the data year, even without a sudden transformation in a region’s underlying economy. The evidence supports a narrower conclusion: Seattle entered the 2022–23 hiring slowdown with a large, growing and highly paid tech-talent base, but that strength did not make the market immune to layoffs, slower recruiting or affordability pressures.
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