New York unseats San Francisco as top market for tech talent: CBRE

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It ought to come as no shock that the variety of synthetic intelligence-specific tech staff is rising quickly, and the impact of this progress on regional workplace markets is substantial. For the primary time, New York’s workplace market is residence to essentially the most tech staff, thanks largely to AI, in line with a brand new report from CBRE.

New York’s 394,300 tech expertise jobs edged out the San Francisco Bay Space’s 375,730 jobs, CBRE discovered. The report analyzes tech-specific staff in 75 metropolitan markets within the U.S. and Canada. It is the primary time New York has taken the lead within the 13 years of this evaluation. 

“The story there’s that there is been cuts within the Bay Space, so the tech trade has contracted the dimensions of the tech expertise workforce, and the finance sector [in New York] has employed a whole lot of tech expertise and a whole lot of AI staff,” stated Colin Yasukochi, govt director of CBRE’s Tech Insights Heart in San Francisco.

For each the U.S. and Canada, AI tech roles grew by 45% prior to now yr, with San Francisco and New York every including greater than 20,000 AI-specific jobs since mid-2025, in line with CBRE. 

As of June, there have been 751,000 AI-related staff throughout the 2 international locations, the report discovered. These embrace each new jobs and conversions from present jobs. AI-related roles now account for almost one-third of all tech-talent job listings within the U.S., per the findings. 

By market, 37% of AI jobs within the U.S. are within the San Francisco Bay Space, New York, Seattle and Washington. Whereas New York leads in general tech expertise, San Francisco nonetheless leads in AI, particularly.

In Canada, there’s better focus of AI employment, with 60% of these jobs primarily based in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver.

Workplace leasing is rising accordingly in these markets the place AI staff are most in demand. 

In San Francisco, AI firms made up 58% of all leasing within the first half of this yr and have accounted for 30% of leasing exercise, totaling about 10 million sq. ft, since 2023, in line with CBRE.  

Whereas general tech drove the Bay Space’s workplace market over the previous few many years, the pandemic pushed lots of these staff to distant jobs. AI, nevertheless, has a extra office-centric tradition and is now fueling the market’s restoration. 

“It is extra of the type of startup innovation tradition that we have seen, the place persons are within the workplace [a] minimal of 4, however normally like 5 or 6 days per week,” stated Yasukochi. “By this entire innovation course of, being collectively and dealing in particular person is simply rather more environment friendly and progressive.”

Along with San Francisco, AI leasing exercise is concentrated most in Manhattan, Boston and Seattle, in line with CBRE.

There was concern that AI would scale back head counts, and consequently the necessity for workplace house, however within the brief time period, no less than, that has not been the case. 

“It mainly modifications jobs and creates new jobs, extra so than it eliminates,” stated Yasukochi, pointing particularly to the finance sector.