New York has surpassed the San Francisco Bay Area as the largest tech talent market in the United States for the first time, according to CBRE 2026 Scoring Tech Talent report released this week. New York metro area now employs 394,300 tech workers, edging out the Bay Area 375,730, marking a historic shift in the geography of the American technology industry.
The reversal reflects diverging trajectories between the two markets. New York added 30,640 tech jobs between 2022 and 2025, while the Bay Area contracted by 23,900 positions over the same period. The CBRE report, which analyzes tech-specific workers across 75 metropolitan markets in the United States and Canada, shows that the shift has been building for several years but crossed a decisive threshold in the latest data.
Remote Work Retreat Drives Shift
A key factor behind the shift is the dramatic decline in remote work opportunities in the Bay Area. In San Francisco, remote job postings fell to just 7 percent of total listings as of April 2026, down from 24 percent in mid-2022. That figure sits well below the current 18 percent share across all U.S. tech talent postings. The return-to-office push has proven particularly punishing for the Bay Area, where high living costs and a previously remote-friendly culture made workers less willing to return.
New York, by contrast, has benefited from its diversified economy and dense network of financial services, media, and healthcare companies that adopted hybrid work models more gradually. The city also saw major tech employers expand their physical footprints, absorbing talent from both the Bay Area and overseas.
AI Talent Remains Bay Area Strength
Despite losing the overall crown, the San Francisco Bay Area retains a commanding lead in artificial intelligence. The Bay Area, New York, Seattle, and Washington, D.C. collectively hold 37 percent of all U.S. AI-related jobs, but the Bay Area alone accounts for the largest share of AI-specialty workers. Remote job postings for AI roles remain concentrated in the Bay Area, suggesting that the most cutting-edge research and development work continues to cluster there.
Other cities also made significant gains. Toronto added 75,000 tech jobs, Dallas-Fort Worth added 37,230, and markets like Calgary and Nashville saw the fastest growth rates at 56 percent and 34 percent respectively. The data suggests a broader decentralization of tech talent away from a single dominant hub toward a more distributed national landscape.
The report also highlighted that the top six tech talent markets remain unchanged from the previous year: San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, Toronto, New York Metro, Austin, and Washington, D.C. Boston advanced two spots to seventh, while Vancouver moved up one place to ninth. The overall picture is one of a technology workforce that is growing but spreading more evenly across North American cities than at any point in the past two decades.
Sources: CBRE 2026 Scoring Tech Talent Report; CNBC; Los Angeles Times
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