Philly is slowly adding tech workers. These specialties are leading in the region

A new report by CompTIA measuring tech jobs growth in the US shows that Pennsylvania ranked ninth for net tech employment in 2021, and the Philly region specifically ranked 12th.

About 135,000 tech jobs were added across the country in 2021, accounting for about 5.7% of the overall U.S. workforce in 2021. By the end of 2022, CompTI expects around 8.9 million tech roles in the US, adding about 178,000 to the existing workforce.

Philly’s tech scene represented more than 157,000 people, with a median annual wage of $95,734, just over the national average. Across the entire state, the report found 285,376 tech workers, representing 4.8% of the population. The median salary in PA was $85,900.

Heading into 2022, roles in software development, programming, web development, software quality assurance, database, data science and computer science are expected to see the most hiring activity, the report found. The number of tech jobs is expected to grow in the next year, but by a small margin last year — adding approximately 630 net new jobs.

Read the full report

But the report estimates that more growth is coming for the Philly region. Between 2022 and 2032, the CompTIA report found that the region will likely add about 5,100 new tech jobs to the economy. And the option to work from home and to work with emerging technologies are increasingly becoming available and bringing tech workers into the Philly market.

In Philly, software jobs represented the majority of tech positions with about 35,000 workers, followed by IT support specialists, network engineers, cybersecurity and systems engineers and database and data scientists followed after. Within the tech sector, IT services and custom software led with the most workers with about 42,000 in the industry, followed by telecommunications and internet, then tech manufacturing.

The breakdown of companies shows that many tech employers are small businesses. There are more than 7,000 tech business establishments in the metro area, with many under the “small business” limit of 500 employees. The tech sector has an estimated direct economic impact of $33.1 billion on the total local economy, the report said. And it continues to be under-representative of the city’s population of women and people of color (though there are ongoing efforts in the city to change that).

As we’ve heard before, the tech sector was one that felt fewer shocks to its system amid the pandemic than other industries. But the national and local numbers show steady growth will continue to be the norm.

“The tech sector and the broader base of technology workers employed across the economy experienced several bumps during this turbulent period, but generally held up well,” the report said. “In some cases, demand for technology services and infrastructure to support new remote work models, ecommerce, or revamped supply chains exploded, stretching the capacity of solution providers and MSPs.”