Professionals in field of high-tech continue to enjoy increased opportunities for career advancement and salary growth, as statistics show thousands of companies across the country, large and small, that have sustained growth and impacted the economies in their respective cities.
This month Forbes released their top ten “Best Cities for Tech Jobs” in conjunction with Praxis Strategy group, which focused on tech employment growth at traditionally tech-oriented companies AND the areas of manufacturing, finance, and business services.
It was in these latter categories where Forbes discovered increased growth as data management and processing, expanded intranets and cloud computing, and software development permeates into every market sector.
- Seattle
- Washington, D.C.
- San Diego / Carlsbad / San Marcos
- Salt Lake City
- Baltimore / Townson
- Jacksonville
- San Jose / Sunnyvale / Santa Clara
- Columbus
- Raleigh / Cary
- Nashville / Davidson / Murfreesboro / Franklin
Some were surprised that the Silicon Valley area didn’t make the top three. But as Forbes’ Joel Kotkin points out in the article, “…Silicon Valley is far from leading the way in expanding science and technology-related employment in the United States…the Valley at the end of 2011 employed 170,000 fewer people than in 2000.”
New York City and Brooklyn continues to pump up the Silicon Alley moniker as new R&D labs come to town from both eBay and Microsoft, accompanying existing tech-oriented companies, including Twitter, and Facebook.
Whether you live in these top 10 cities or not, as presented in our article “IT Professionals: 2012 Careers & Salaries Trend Upwards,” job and career opportunities are popping up nationwide.
The careers and salaries article spotlights the survey of CIOs by Robert Half Technology, which included a staggering static: almost two-thirds of executives stated their organization’s understaffing has compromised innovation and the creation of emerging technologies.
Some of those CIOs may have been on the hunt for two specific areas of expertise. Dice.com recently announced positive job growth for Software Systems Developers through 2020, which is mainly being driven by the healthcare industry moving from paper to Electronic Medical Records. In the area of Application Development, the continued surge in mobile usage has resulted in an anticipated 30% growth in Application Development jobs over the next eight years.
And, Dice also released their own Top 10 Cities list, which isn’t apples to apples with Forbes’ list, but does include IT salary data while stating its hot commodity status and an eagerness to share the numbers. “That’s good news for IT professionals trying to benchmark their salaries and negotiate increases.
If you are currently seeking employment or just want to tip your toe in the water, here are a few job seeking and interviewing tips we’ve featured on Twitter:
4 Steps to Creating a Memorable Executive Resume
Why A Headhunter Contacts You, And What You Should Do Next
Projects Are the New Job Interviews
Todd Edmunds, Regis University Systems Engineering Graduate
