A new study ranks the Raleigh-Cary metro as one of the eight top metropolitan areas for tech jobs that pay $100,000 or more.

The same study ranks North Carolina’s capital as No. 5 in tech job postings.

Tech hubs are built around such common factors as having a core of high-tech firms, research universities and vibrant entrepreneurial eco systems. Raleigh and the greater Triangle often rank highly in tech and life science surveys. The Indeed study shines a spotlight on earning power where Raleigh is better known for lower costs of living and quality of life rather than big paychecks.

However, more and more top-salary positions are becoming available locally. For example, the average salary to be offered by A Wireless, the latest recruiting win for Raleigh, is $93,000. Infosys, another recent recruit, says its average wage for new jobs will be $72,000. (Average Wake wage is $54,000, according to state figures.)

Overall, the report from Indeed Hiring Lab Research rates Raleigh-Cary as the No. 11 “tech hub” in the U.S. as one of the “closet cousins to Silicon Valley.”

“[W]hat is it that really sets Silicon Valley and other vibrant tech hubs apart? It turns out it’s not just the sheer amount of technology-related activity, but also the kind of activity—notably an unusual mix of technology jobs that skews toward high-paying and newly emerging tech occupations,” the report points out.

Job titles range from technical staff to machine learning engineers, cloud engineers to back-end developers.

And Indeed points out that the high-value tech jobs are growing increasingly concentrated in eight metros, including Raleigh.

“Tech jobs remain as concentrated in the same big eight US tech hubs as they have been for several years, despite the high cost of housing and labor in these metros,” writes Indeed Chief Economist Jed Kolko.

“Furthermore, these big eight hubs are tightening their grip: Higher-salary technology occupations are becoming increasingly concentrated, while lower-salary technology jobs are dispersing slightly to the rest of the country. In this sense, the US technology jobs landscape is becoming more unequal—yet another example of how the country is becoming increasingly differentiated and polarized.”

Some 40 percent of tech job openings in these eight hubs are in the highest salary range, according to the report.

Raleigh ranks No. 5 in 2017 for the highest percentage of tech among job openings among the nation’s 51 largest metro areas at 11.1 percent even though listings fell by 14.6 year-over-year. (that was the largest drop among the eight.)

Here is the top eight metros ranked by percentage of tech among all job positions available:

1. San Jose, 19.2%

2. Washington, 17.4%

3. Baltimore, 12.9%

4. Seattle, 12.5%

5. Raleigh, 11.1%

6. San Francisco-Oakland, 10.9%

7. Austin, 9.9%

8. Boston, 9.4%

“Together, 27% of technology job postings nationally were in these eight tech centers,” Kolko writes.

The report splits the Silicon Valley region in two (San Jose area, San Francisco-Oakland area) and calls the other top tech metros “cousins” of the Valley. But they also have differences.

“The big eight tech hubs are not replicas of each other—labor markets differ among them significantly. Indeed’s job postings in the first half of 2017 reveal that San Francisco and Seattle, more than any other US metros, share the Silicon Valley pattern of plentiful high-paying and newly emerging tech jobs—cutting-edge occupations like computer vision engineer and machine learning engineer,” Kolko notes.

“Seattle is the tech hub with the fastest growth rate in tech-job openings.

“Two additional hubs, Boston and Austin, have tech-job mixes similar to Silicon Valley’s, but, unlike Seattle, they are not gaining tech-job share.

“Rounding out the big eight, tech jobs in Washington, DC, Baltimore and Raleigh are more traditional and offer lower salaries, making these metros less like Silicon Valley than their fellow tech hubs.”

Raleigh also is a state capital, which the economist points out can be a disadvantage since government sector jobs often pay less than positions in the private sector.

As a result Raleigh ranks seventh in terms of having the highest-paid openings on average.

Read more at:

http://www.hiringlab.org/2017/07/25/next-silicon-valley/