Once upon a time, moving to San Francisco or New York was almost a given if you wanted to work for a big tech company, or if you were a founder looking to tap into a vast pool of engineering talent and venture funding.
Now, however, as companies big and small embrace more permanent work-from-home policies in the wake of the coronavirus crisis, the tech world is leaving these two traditional hubs, which are notorious for their expensive real-estate prices.
But where should tech workers relocate to?
Silicon Valley Bank, the Santa Clara-based commercial bank known for lending to founders and tech investors, created an "attractiveness" score to rank cities based on six criteria: rent prices, cost of living, corporate tax rate, price per square foot for office space, state income tax, and access to job candidates.
It turned its findings into a list, which it published in its latest State of the Markets report, which ranks the top cities for tech workers and companies to migrate to outside SF and New York.
Here are the top ten most attractive cities:
- Raleigh, North California
- Austin, Texas
- Nashville, Tennessee
- Salt Lake City, Utah
- Atlanta, Georgia
- Denver, Colorado
- Chicago, Illinois
- Portland, Oregon
- Los Angeles, California
- Boston, Massachusetts
Silicon Valley Bank also created a chart which gives a more detailed look into the factors that determined the list juxtaposed with how much VC deals have increased in the past three years. One highlight is skyrocketing VC deal flow occuring in Raleigh, North California, which is up 36% over three years, more than double the increase of its nearest competitor, Washington, D.C.
