IT workers looking for a growing tech sector where their earnings will stretch further may want to consider the nation’s capital.
Washington, D.C., had the highest number of job openings for IT professionals over the past 12 months, according to a report released today by IT trade association CompTIA.
The report identified the top 20 “tech towns” based on six variables: the number of IT job openings in the last 12 months per 10,000 people employed in that city, the total number of IT job ads over the past 12 months, cost of living, cost of living adjusted for median earnings, and one-year and five-year projected growth rates for IT jobs. CompTIA used data from Burning Glass, as well as the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
More than 170,000 ads for Washington, D.C.-based IT jobs were posted in the last year — more than in top tech hubs like San Francisco, San Jose, or Seattle. Most of these jobs are, unsurprisingly, for government contractors.
Booz Allen Hamilton, General Dynamics, Accenture, and Deloitte are among the companies hiring for the most IT roles in D.C — though they may soon get some competition from Amazon.
D.C. is still one of the most expensive cities to live in in the country. But with IT professionals earning a median salary of $103,397, CompTIA estimates that their salary still goes further in D.C. than in it would in San Jose, San Francisco, or Austin.
The city that was rated the top tech town by CompTIA was Charlotte, North Carolina. A hub for financial institutions like Wells Fargo and Bank of America, Charlotte had 44,000 openings for IT jobs posted on Burning Glass within the past year.
Charlotte IT workers only make a median salary of $87,775. However, cost of living in the city is 1.3 percent below the national average.
Other places IT workers might want to consider are college towns. Boulder, Madison, and Durham-Chapel Hill all made CompTIA’s top 20 list, with solid rankings in cost of living factors. All three cities are home to growing startup communities, but their universities and government agencies remain some of the top employers of IT professionals.