9 Cities Tech Staff Are Transferring to — and 9 Locations They’re Leaving

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• According to a report, NYC, Austin and LA were the top cities where tech talent moved between 2022 and 2023.
• San Francisco, Seattle and Boston lost the largest share of relocating tech workers.
• Several places that attract tech workers are “blue island” cities in red states.

Top tech workers aren't just moving to Austin and Miami.

According to a recent report from SignalFire, New York was the city that saw the largest share of tech talent relocation between 2022 and 2023.

While the San Francisco Bay Area is still the center of the tech world, the exodus of tech workers from California has continued since the advent of remote work.

The report found that the most common states where technicians moved were New York, Texas, California and Florida.

The nine largest cities where technicians were relocated were:

New York saw a net increase in tech talent of about 3.5%, while Austin saw a net increase of about 1.5% and Los Angeles saw a net increase of about 0.5%.

Meanwhile, the nine cities from which technicians moved were as follows:

• San Francisco

• Seattle

• Boston

• Phoenix

• Washington, D.C

• Sacramento, California

• Portland, Ore

• Detroit

• Provo, Utah

San Francisco saw a net loss of 3.5% in tech talent, while Seattle lost nearly 2.5% and Boston lost more than 0.5%.

The report found that 15% of all tech workers who moved between 2022 and 2023 went to New York. New York attracted a significant portion of technicians, relocating from San Francisco, Boston, and Seattle, among others.

The trend of people generally moving from San Francisco and California to cities in Texas and Florida can be partly explained by people wanting to escape the high cost of living. But New York managed to attract the largest share of tech workers who relocated between 2022 and 2023, despite high real estate prices and costs of living.

Some of the cities attracting tech workers are “Blue Island” cities in red states like Austin, Nashville, Tampa and Miami.

In addition to the cities in the report, there are also smaller cities across the U.S. with a growing tech scene, including places in Utah, Idaho and Arkansas.

Correction: May 1, 2024 – An earlier version of this story misstated the time period measured in the SignalFire report. It was between 2022 and 2023, not last year.