Despite missing on Amazon, Raleigh is rated as a top tech town

The race for Amazon’s HQ2 came to a conclusion this week, and despite not landing the company’s second headquarters, a new study shows the Research Triangle’s tech sector is poised to flourish for years to come. Long-term economic growth doesn’t just revolve around landing new offices of existing tech giants, but rather, fostering a startup ecosystem and tech-ready workforce where the innovators of tomorrow will blossom. And that’s where the Research Triangle has a leg up on the competition.

A new study from CompTIA identifies Raleigh as the number two “Tech Town” in the nation based on cost of living, IT job growth and salaries – outranking traditional coastal hubs such as San Francisco, Boston and Washington, DC. Other North Carolina cities to make the list were Charlotte (combined with Concord and Gastonia, S.C) at No. 1 and Durham-Chapel Hill at No. 15.

The study cites Raleigh’s unique access to an educated workforce, with 12 colleges located in the city and 21 more within 25 miles. Access to a robust talent pool helped Raleigh businesses fill a large chunk of the 25,633 tech jobs that were posted in city last year.

Additionally, Raleigh’s low cost of living makes it a very attractive location for tech workers looking to put down their roots. Tech workers in Raleigh earn a median salary of $86,944 and enjoy a cost of living 3.5 percent lower than the national average. Compare that to cities such as San Francisco, where the cost of living is a whopping 64.2 percent higher than the national average, or Boston, where it’s 34.6 percent higher.

More than 500 startups are located in the region, and even without the addition of an Amazon HQ2 office, the number of IT jobs in Raleigh is projected to grow 11 percent over the next five years.

Even more, one of the overall takeaways of the study is that North Carolina has emerged as a thriving tech hotspot. North Carolina is one of only two states that has three cities featured in the “Top 20 Tech Towns” -- Charlotte earned the title of America’s number one Tech Town, making it the only city to outrank Raleigh, and Durham-Chapel Hill came in at number 15.

The study paints a promising picture of what’s to come for Raleigh’s tech ecosystem, and while landing the next campus for a company like Amazon will always provide a boon, the better question is: where will the next Amazon come from?

CompTIA’s Tech Town Index shows the answer could very well be the Research Triangle.

Richard Otteson is a Senior Executive Consultant at Consult Global IT and serves as President of the Research Triangle Park Chapter of CompTIA AITP

This story was originally published November 15, 2018 at 11:13 AM.