There aren’t many surprises in the latest edition of the Milken Institute’s State and Technology Index, with high-tech hotbeds such as Massachusetts, Colorado, California, Maryland, Washington and Utah receiving top-tier status.
In fact, those six states also sat atop the list in the 2018 version of the report, which measures states across five core areas: research and development; risk capital and entrepreneurial infrastructure; human capital investment; technology and science workforce; and technology concentration and dynamism.
Washington state — home to juggernauts like Amazon, Microsoft and T-Mobile — ranked fifth on the list, moving up one spot when compared to 2018. California also moved up a spot, ranking third. Oregon retained its overall ranking of 10th, while Mississippi finished in last place among the 50 states.
Washington state tied with Maryland for first place in the technology and science workforce subcategory, buoyed by strong employment gains at Seattle’s tech titans as well as a number of Silicon Valley companies that have established engineering centers in the region in recent years.
“The state boasts an impressive cluster of software and web developers employed at technology giants such as Microsoft and Amazon but also within the thriving start-up environment,” the reports says.
A separate study released today by the job search site Indeed ranked the Seattle area as the third most robust market for tech jobs behind the Washington D.C. and New York metropolitan areas. The report indicated that job seeker interest in Seattle tech jobs increased by 6.9% since 2019.
Microsoft employs 58,059 employees in the Seattle area, while Amazon’s workforce totals more than 55,000 in the metro area.
Washington state’s weakest subranking in the Milken report came in the Human Capital Investment category — essentially the state’s support for educational resources in science, technology, engineering and math. Washington ranked 14th, which includes metrics such as state spending on students, broadband access, test scores, and higher education graduates.
In the risk capital and entrepreneurial infrastructure subcategory, Washington state remained in the fifth spot. The report cites recent VC-backed companies such as Auth0, Icertis and Outreach as key members of the startup landscape, citing their recent “unicorn” status in which they received private valuations of more than $1 billion.
See the full report here.
