New York’s metropolitan area had more tech workers than the San Francisco Bay Area in 2025, even though the Bay Area remained CBRE’s top-ranked tech labor market overall.
CBRE, a real estate services firm, counted 394,300 tech workers in the New York region and 375,730 in the Bay Area. The figures appeared in a report published Aug. 18, 2026, and measure employment in 2025.
From 2022 to 2025, New York gained 30,640 tech workers, while the Bay Area lost 23,900. CBRE’s count covers more than 20 occupations across industries, including tech jobs at businesses whose main work is outside technology.
New York City figures show how broad that employment base is within the city. Tech:NYC, a nonprofit representing its technology industry, said 64% of the city’s tech workers were employed by companies outside the sector, including banks and media businesses. It put the share working for tech companies and startups at 35%. The city figures cover a smaller area than CBRE’s metro count.
National industry figures provide further context. CBRE found that finance, insurance and real estate employers added 90,530 tech jobs across the United States since 2022, while the high-tech industry shed 21,262 tech jobs. Earlier Randstad survey findings showed that 70% of surveyed U.S. non-tech organizations were taking on talent from the tech sector.
Demand for artificial intelligence skills is also visible in city postings. Tech:NYC and Accenture counted more than 55,000 New York City job listings seeking AI or machine-learning skills in the first half of 2026, 2.7 times the year-earlier total.
For Bank of America software engineer Erin Sullivan, the subway added to New York’s appeal. Sullivan, who graduated in 2023, told CNBC that being able to travel around the city by train helped draw her there.
Housing presents a cost. CBRE measured monthly Manhattan apartment rent at 28.7% of tech wages, the highest share among the markets it compared. Tech:NYC President and CEO Julie Samuels told CNBC that an influx of well-paid tech workers could increase affordability pressures on other New Yorkers.
Tech:NYC also found that Black and Hispanic residents accounted for 22% of the city’s tech ecosystem workforce, compared with 35% of its overall workforce.
