Virginia ranks sixth among 50 states in tech employment

Published March 27, 2018 by Paula C. Squires

Employment in Virginia’s technology industry expanded by about 1,460 jobs last year while the industry contributed nearly $54 billion to the commonwealth’s economy, according to Cyberstates 2018, an annual analysis of the nation’s tech industry.

CompTIA, (the Computing Technology Industry Association) released its annual report Tuesday. It said that Virginia, with 425,300 workers, ranks sixth among the 50 states and the District of Columbia in net tech employment. This includes tech industry workers in technical and non-technical positions, technical workers in other industries and self-employed technology workers. The number accounts for 9.9 percent of the state’s total workforce. The average tech industry wage in Virginia is $114,770, compared to the state’s average private sector annual wage of $55,730.

According to the report, the tech sector is responsible for an estimated 12.8 percent ($57.3 billion) of the overall economy in Virginia, which is home to some 21,410 tech businesses.

Virginia’s Cyberstates Innovation Score places the state seventh, down from sixth last year. This ranking is based on a state-by-state per-capita analysis of new tech patents awarded, tech startups and new tech business establishments.

Virginia saw a 19.8 percent jump from 2016 to 2017 in the number of job postings related to emerging technologies — such as the internet of things, smart cities, drones, artificial intelligence, machine learning, virtual reality and augmented reality. While these positions accounted for a small percentage of total tech job postings, the report says it’s an indicator of where organizations are headed with technology investments.
The strongest year-over-year job growth occurred in the category of IT services and custom software services (+ 2.3 percent).

Nationally, the tech industry employs 11.5 million people in the U.S., adding 194,000 jobs in 2017, with software and web developers representing the largest growth category.
The estimated direct economic impact was $1.6 trillion, representing 9.2 percent of the national economy. There are 503,000 tech businesses in the U. S., with more than 34,000 new business units started in 2017.  
The average annual wages of U.S. tech industry workers is $112,89, slightly less  than Virginia's wage.

Cyberstates 2018 is based on CompTIA’s analysis of data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, EMSI, Burning Glass Technologies Labor Insights and other sources. Estimates for 2017 are subject to change as government data is revised and updated.