Mexico City surpassed São Paulo this year as the largest tech talent market in Latin America, according to CBRE’s annual report on these markets in the Americas.
The report analyzes Latin America’s tech talent markets based on total employment in the sector, five-year tech job growth, average salary growth in the sector, total numbers of tech graduates, and five-year growth in the number of tech graduates.
Mexico City has the largest tech workforce in the region, with 300,000 tech specialists. São Paulo, last year’s top-ranked market, has 240,227 professionals.
“Mexico City continues to grow as a tech hub, with a large number of tech graduates from the city’s top universities and affordable labor and real estate costs compared to many North American markets,” said Yazmín Ramírez, Senior Director of Labor Analytics and Client Consulting at CBRE Latam. “The city’s growing pool of tech labor continues to attract manufacturers, engineering firms, and other companies looking to bring operations back to Latin America from overseas,” she added.
CBRE’s 11th “Scoring Tech Talent” report ranks 75 cities in the U.S. and Canada based on multiple factors, including tech job growth, tech degree completions, labor and real estate costs, and millennial population, among others. The San Francisco Bay Area tops this year’s rankings, followed by Seattle and Toronto.
This is the fifth year CBRE has ranked Latin American markets in this report. The rankings are based solely on the size of each city’s tech talent workforce. The report also examines the average tech salary in each market and its five-year growth, the average office rent and its five-year growth, and the completion of tech degrees.
“The relevance of Latin America as a talent source in the Americas has expanded due to its proximity to the United States and Canada, the growing pool of tech talent, the cost-benefit ratio, the time zone, infrastructure, and tax benefits,” said the executive. “As a result, the region is now considered a well-established location that hosts a significant number of multinational tech companies,” she added.
Mexico City stood out in several other key areas in CBRE’s report:
– It produced more tech degree graduates in 2023 (24,050) than any other of the top 11 markets. The next closest was São Paulo with 15,972.
– The tech salary growth rate in the city over the past five years was 42%, higher than the average increase across the 11 markets (36%) and the U.S. (18%).
– It saw a 32% increase in software developer salaries since 2018, reaching $47,938 in 2023, surpassing Latin America’s growth rate (28%) over the same period.
CBRE Group, Inc. (NYSE: CBRE) is a Fortune 500 and S&P 500 company headquartered in Dallas. It is the world’s largest commercial real estate services and investment firm (based on 2023 revenue). The company has over 130,000 employees (including Turner & Townsend staff) and serves clients in more than 100 countries. CBRE provides a wide range of services, including facilities, transaction, and project management; property management; investment management; appraisal and valuation; property leasing; strategic consulting; property sales; mortgage services; and development services.
