Toronto has been ranked as the third-best city in North America at producing and concentrating top tech talent, a recent reports suggest. According to the latest Scoring Tech Talent report by real estate services and investment firm CBRE, Toronto scored 72.73, placing behind only the San Francisco Bay Area (81.98) and Seattle (74.37). The top six metro areas in the report retained the same rankings as last year, with the New York metro area placing fourth and Austin, Texas, rounding out the top five. “We have some of the best universities, the best researchers, the best operators, but then also a really incredible network of investors and founders that are building right here,” Julia Konafal, head of platform and operations at Golden Ventures and founding partner at Toronto Tech Week, said in an interview with CP24. “I think that’s a really special ingredient. I think Canadians should be really excited by this news. Talent is one of the hardest pieces of building a great technology ecosystem, and we’re so lucky to have it.” The annual ranking measures tech talent growth across 50 North American markets using 13 metrics, including talent concentration, labor costs, research and development, and tech talent pipeline growth. CBRE defines tech talent as highly skilled workers across more than 20 technology-oriented occupations, including software developers, hardware engineers, and information systems managers. Between 2022 and 2025, Toronto added 75,000 tech jobs, leading all North American markets in tech industry job creation. The report also ranked Toronto as fifth for artificial intelligence employment. As of June 2026, the city accounted for 33,419 AI-focused tech workers, outpacing major U.S. hubs including Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, and Atlanta. Six Canadian markets made the report’s top 15 list this year. Outside of Toronto, Vancouver ranked ninth (60.52), followed by the Waterloo Region in 10th (60.00), Montreal in 11th, Ottawa in 14th, and Calgary in 15th. Here are the top 15 cities in CBRE’s Tech Talent report.
