Calgary Emerges as a North American Tech Talent Leader

What do Calgary, Toronto, and the San Francisco Bay area all have in common? According to the CBRE 2024 Scoring Tech Talent Report, all three markets are creating a large number of new jobs in tech.

This annual report provides a comprehensive analysis of labour market conditions, costs, and quality of skilled tech workers across markets in North America. As a whole, Canada saw tech jobs increase by 1.7% in 2023. But that number is dwarfed by Calgary’s contribution, which grew our tech workforce by 7.5% in the last year alone. Today, close to 60,000 people make up Calgary’s tech talent workforce.

Calgary is now the 20th ranked market in North America for tech talent. Today, we are peers of much larger cities including Phoenix, Detroit, and Chicago. In the Canadian context Calgary is the 6th largest market after Toronto (4th), Ottawa (10th), Montreal (15th), Vancouver (16th), and Waterloo (18th). While 6th in Canada may not sound like a big deal, understanding the pace of Calgary’s growth in recent years paints a positive picture of where we are headed as a tech market.

A decade ago, Calgary was not even reflected in the top 50 of tech markets in North America. Since 2018, Calgary has added 26,000 new jobs in tech. This is a 78% increase in tech jobs in a five year period. The second closest highest growth trajectory is found in Ottawa, which grew by 50%. In fact, Calgary has created more total tech jobs in the last five years than New York City. Let that sink in.

So why is this happening to Calgary now?

In recent years, Calgary’s tech sector has seen an explosion of activity. According to the Alberta Enterprise Corporation 2023 Deal Flow Study, Alberta has increased our total tech companies by 157% from 2012. More than 60% of those companies call Calgary home. Those new companies are driving the local economy and creating jobs for thousands of Calgarians.

This kind of transformation doesn’t happen overnight. Building Calgary into a major tech talent market is a product of a collaborative community that brings together the tools, skills, and expertise that we need to support a growing sector. Calgary’s impressive roster of talent initiatives includes:

• TalentED - An online platform that helps Calgary employers navigate the engagement of students in their organisations for practical work experience. By collaborating with post-secondary institutions and government, Calgarians can find more opportunities to work in tech. 
• Momentum - This change-making organisation combines social and economic strategies to reduce poverty and create more opportunities for Calgarians. Their approach includes financial literacy, entrepreneurship and skills training, the development of communications skills, and building self-confidence and positive social networks.
• CareersNextGEN - A unique, industry-led public/private not-for-profit that brings together industry, schools, government, and communities to help guide youth into successful career paths. They work with more than 1,800 employers to help create more than 3,000 student internships every year. 
• InceptionU - This organisation is focused on delivering a new learning experience that is focused on building competence to meet the demands of an uncertain future. Initiatives focus on upskilling current employees while also providing training and retraining programs. 
• ComIT - This organisation aims to develop a community that links people struggling to overcome employment barriers with companies looking for talented IT professionals. ComIT targets the skills gap in the labour market by focusing on the tools and languages required by local companies, as well as on much needed soft skills and professional development capabilities. 

Numerous tech companies within the Calgary tech ecosystem have also built their own programming and processes to attract, retain, and develop their talent.

Calgary’s broader talent strategy focuses on helping people find jobs, but it also prepares them to create jobs by pursuing a future in entrepreneurship. In Calgary, more than ever, people can make the shift from being a job-taker to being a job-maker. That spirit is deeply embedded in our Blue Sky City culture.

Calgary is a place of endless opportunities with a community that has rallied around a common goal: to establish our city as the best place in the world for anyone to start and grow a tech company. We’re now seeing compelling evidence that we are on a trajectory as one of the world’s most dynamic tech markets. From being one of the world’s most livable cities, to being home to world-class post secondary institutions, to our reputation as an entrepreneur friendly city - the sky's the limit for tech in Calgary.