South By Southwest has brought thousands of people from across the world to witness the latest in music, films and technology. But a recent study confirms what Austinites already know: Austin’s tech scene is buzzing all year long.
CompTIA, a nonprofit trade association for the IT industry, recently published its fourth annual Tech Town Index, which found that Austin was the best tech city in the U.S. This is the third year in a row that Austin has ranked at the top of the list.
The study evaluated 20 tech-heavy metropolitan areas based on the cost of living, the number of IT job postings and the projected job growth over the next year and the next five years.
Austin-area employers posted 64,481 technology jobs last year, with IBM, Deloitte and Dell among the region’s top employers.
The job opportunities are expected to increase with Oracle, Tesla and other major tech companies moving their headquarters to Austin in recent years. Other tech companies have opened satellite offices to accommodate their growing Austin workforce.
According to CompTIA, Austin ranked highest in projected job growth over the next year (3.75 percent) and over the next five years (13.9 percent).
The recent tech boom has caused Austin’s population to grow by more than 33 percent between 2010 and 2020, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau. In January, the median home sales price in the Austin metro was $476,000, which is twice the median home price of $216,000 in 2011, according to the Austin Board of Realtors. Still, CompTIA found that Austin’s cost of living is 3.4 percent lower than the national average, and that its affordability rating beat all but three of the 20 Tech Towns. Austin’s cost of living did not beat out Lansing, Atlanta or Huntsville.
The median tech salary in Austin is $90,459. When comparing the national cost of living versus the local cost of living, the median tech salary feels like $93,643, according to CompTIA.
