Every day we complain about the brain drain, yet despite it, Toronto added 75,000 tech workers between 2022 and 2025, the biggest gain of any market in North America  New York added 30,640. The San Francisco Bay Area lost 23,900.

The number comes from CBRE's Scoring Tech Talent 2026, the annual ranking of the top 50 tech talent markets in the U.S. and Canada.  Here's what the data says about us: the good, the bad, and the raise you should probably be giving your engineers.

Despite the worry about our competitiveness, Canadian cities scored quite well. Toronto ranks #3 on the continent, behind only the Bay Area and Seattle, ahead of New York, Austin, Boston and D.C. Vancouver is #9. Waterloo Region is #10. Montreal is #11, up four spots, one of the biggest jumps on the list. Ottawa (#14) and Calgary (#15) make it six Canadian markets in the top 15. Halifax, London and Winnipeg all place in the top 11 of CBRE's 25 up-and-coming markets.

The more surprising stats were our growth and the age of our tech workers.

Canada's tech workforce grew 7.6% in 2025. The U.S. grew 1.8%. Since 2022 it's 16.5% versus 5.3%. The two fastest-growing markets of all 50 are Calgary (+56%) and Waterloo (+37%). Toronto's +27% is fourth.

The people arriving are young. Waterloo's twenty-something population grew 49.6% since 2019, the most anywhere in North America, and at 20.4% of residents, it's also the most 20s-dense market on the continent. Among large markets, the three fastest-growing 20s populations are Calgary, Toronto and Vancouver. The four fastest-growing 30s populations: Vancouver (+27%), Toronto (+22%), Ottawa (+21%), Calgary (+20%).  They're educated, too, 49.7% of Toronto adults hold a bachelor's or higher, eighth-highest of the 50.

We didn’t like to see is that in CBRE's words: Vancouver and Waterloo "provide the best value when it comes to cost and quality" of any market on the continent, with Toronto and Edmonton also on the value list. Both sit in the "very high" engineering-quality band at software salaries around half of Seattle's.

The operating math is louder. A 500-person tech company costs $90.6M USD a year in the Bay Area and $73.9M USD in New York or Seattle versus $42.1M USD in Toronto and $39.5M USD in Montreal. The eight cheapest markets of all 50 are the eight Canadian ones. The cheapest U.S. market is still $8M USD a year pricier than the most expensive Canadian one. This is in part driven by a weak Canadian dollar but also reflects the fact that we underpay our talent.

CBRE subtitled this year's report "AI Realignment Underway." Underway where, exactly? AI specialists as a share of tech talent: Bay Area 26%, Seattle nearly 20%, New York and Boston 17%. Toronto: about 9%. Montreal: about 6%. Toronto has the fifth-largest AI workforce in North America, 33,419 people, but as a share of the work, we're mid-table. In the U.S., AI roles are already 31% of tech job postings.

Second: 55% of Canada's software engineers work inside the tech industry, versus 48% in the U.S. More of America's engineers are being hired out into banks, hospitals and retailers than ours are. Add the wage signal, U.S. tech pays a 15% premium over other industries, Canada's is 8%,  and the pattern is hard to unsee: we underinvest in the people doing the inventing and our industry underinvests in technology as a whole.

Only nine of the 50 markets created more tech jobs than tech grads over the past three years. Three are Canadian. Toronto's gap, 75,000 jobs added against 24,364 degrees granted, is the largest talent-import gap in North America. Calgary is #2. Vancouver makes the list as well. And Waterloo, the poster child for departing grads, is now roughly break-even. Talent isn't leaking out of these cities. It's pouring in.

A Toronto tech company runs about $32M USD a year cheaper than the same company in Seattle. Give 261 engineers a 20% raise and you've spent $4.4M USD, still $27M USD ahead. That gap isn't just margin. It's room to out-pay, out-keep and out-hire everyone else while U.S. employers cut the 100,000+ jobs they're blaming on AI this year.

Cheap talent was the old Canadian pitch. Paid-like-they-matter talent is the better one.

Another way to look at this, is if we want to increase productivity in Canada we would like to see more people employed outside of tech companies and AI workers as a higher portion of our ecosystem. My guess is if that happened salaries would be forced up.

Source: CBRE Research, Scoring Tech Talent 2026, August 2026.

Next Together Toronto is September 14. Come argue with us about the AI number.

MIT professor Amos Winter, Director of the K. Lisa Yang Global Engineering and Research (GEAR) Center, joins Rotman School of Management to discuss his new book, Global by Design, and how to create innovations that scale across markets and communities.

Monday, September 21, 5:30 to 6:30 PM ET with a book signing after. Use code TECHTO20 for 20% off.

→ Details and tickets here.

*_{Partner Content}

If you’ve been showing up to TechTO events for a while or loving our content, membership is the next layer. TechTO members receive complimentary access to members only digital community, monthly-hosted Together events, quarterly industry vertical events like Health, Commerce, Sales and networking socials.

Annual: $249/year | Founding: $1,199 One-time payment, lifetime access

Want to showcase your company, events, and opportunities to thousands of tech leaders, professionals, and investors across the country?

Contact us about potential partnership and advertising opportunities