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Dallas-Fort Worth computes No. 3 ranking among America's top metros for tech jobs

Dallas is at the top the list for projected growth in tech jobs

Photo by Joe Daniel Price/Getty Images

For the third year in a row, Austin ranks first on a closely watched list of the best places in the U.S. for tech jobs — and Dallas-Fort Worth isn't far behind, at No. 3.

For the latest version of its Tech Town Index, CompTIA, a trade group for the tech industry, looked at 20 metros with populations over 250,000 where demand for tech workers is highest. The metros were then ranked based on cost of living, number of postings for open tech positions in 2021, and projected job growth over both the next 12 months and next five years.

Austin landed at No. 1 again this year, followed in descending order by San Jose, California; Dallas-Fort Worth; Atlanta, Georgia; and Huntsville, Alabama. No other Texas metro appears in the top 10.

CompTIA says the Austin area offers “an attractive combination of opportunity, affordability, and good old-fashioned real estate that keeps technology companies — and talent — flocking to the Lone Star State’s capital city.”

Last year, 64,481 technology job openings were posted in the Austin area, according to CompTIA. The group says Austin continues to top the list for one-year (3.75 percent) and five-year (13.9 percent) projected growth in tech jobs. Companies like Deloitte, Dell Technologies, General Motors, and IBM are among the top recruiters of tech pros in the metro area.

But Austin wasn't first in every category. The area ranked sixth among U.S. metros for the addition of tech jobs last year (1,846), according to CompTIA. Dallas-Fort Worth grabbed the No. 1 spot, adding 5,321 tech jobs in 2021.

DFW is home to the state’s biggest tech workforce (313,447 workers in 2021, ranked sixth in the country). This year, that figure is expected to rise to 321,138, representing a one-year increase of 2.5 percent.

Houston had 134,436 tech jobs in 2021, CompTIA says. This year’s number is expected to be about the same (134,754). Meanwhile, San Antonio had 49,801 tech jobs last year, with the workforce projected to grow to 50,971 this year.

CompTIA poses the question of whether Austin can keep up its current pace of growth as a tech hub.

“Many believe it can. Experts cite ideal conditions for business creation like access to capital, skilled workers, and affordable office space as key factors appealing to startups and enterprise companies alike. … But the IT pros who live and work in Austin say that it’s the attention to work-life balance, access to educational opportunities, and the city’s distinctive culture that keep them working in Austin — and feeling wonderfully weird,” CompTIA says.

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Jobs report

Texas ranks among 10 best states to find a job, says new report

Photo by Christina @ wocintechchat.com on Unsplash

You have a better chance of landing a job in Texas than in most other states.

If you’re hunting for a job in Texas amid a tough employment market, you stand a better chance of landing it here than you might in other states.

A new ranking by personal finance website WalletHub of the best states for jobs puts Texas at No. 7. The Lone Star State lands at No. 2 in the economic environment category and No. 18 in the job market category.

Massachusetts tops the list, and West Virginia appears at the bottom.

To determine the most attractive states for employment, WalletHub compared the 50 states across 34 key indicators of economic health and job market strength. Ranking factors included employment growth, median annual income, and average commute time.

“Living in one of the best states for jobs can provide stable conditions for the long term, helping you ride out the fluctuations that the economy will experience in the future,” WalletHub analyst Chip Lupo says.

In September, Gov. Greg Abbott announced Texas led the U.S. in job creation with the addition of 195,600 jobs over the past 12 months.

While Abbott proclaimed Texas is “America’s jobs leader,” the state’s level of job creation has recently slowed. In June, the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas noted that the state’s year-to-date job growth rate had dipped to 1.8 percent, and that even slower job growth was expected in the second half of this year.

The August unemployment rate in Texas stood at 4.1 percent, according to the Texas Workforce Commission. Throughout 2025, the monthly rate in Texas has been either four percent or 4.1 percent.

By comparison, the U.S. unemployment rate in August was 4.3 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. In 2025, the monthly rate for the U.S. has ranged from 4 percent to 4.3 percent.

Here’s a rundown of the August unemployment rates in Texas’ four biggest metro areas:

Austin — 3.9 percent
Dallas-Fort Worth — 4.4 percent
San Antonio — 4.4 percent
Houston — 5 percent

Unemployment rates have remained steady this year despite layoffs and hiring freezes driven by economic uncertainty. However, the number of U.S. workers who’ve been without a job for at least 27 weeks has risen by 385,000 this year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in August. That month, long-term unemployed workers accounted for about one-fourth of all unemployed workers.

An August survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York showed a record-low 44.9 percent of Americans were confident about finding a job if they lost their current one.

This story originally was published on our sister site, InnovationMap.

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