The Best Global Cities for Working in Tech have been named by Expert Market, and Austin sits just behind Berlin of all of the places in the entire world to find success in the tech industry.
Analysts from B2B marketplace, Expert Market, took a look at data from Compass, a management reporting software company that polled 11,000 startups, investors, and stakeholders. They used the data to analyze the top 20 global cities in the global startup ecosystem (as determined by Compass), then applied their own filters. Eight factors went into determining the rankings of each city, including: seed funding, time to start business, startup output, cost of living, average salary, average rent, paid vacation, and average commute.
What Expert Market did differently was take into consideration more than just what the company gave to their employees, but what environment the employees lived in when they weren’t behind a desk. “Expert Market’s analysis put Berlin, Austin, and Toronto in the top three, respectively, thanks to their balance of business growth, affordable rent, and salary,” Fast Company reports.
The article continues:
Ranking Austin’s “Silicon Hills” in second place shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise. SxSW’s tech conference has played a part in putting the Texas capital on the tech map. Brant cites Austin as the top American tech hub to live and work due to its “huge funding availability and lower living costs than its West Coast rival.”
That squares with Glassdoor findings that indicate Austin is one of the top U.S. cities for jobs this year and one of the friendliest to small businesses started by millennial entrepreneurs. Expert Market found that the average seed funding available to startups in Austin is between $900,000-$950,000.
San Francisco comes in at number 4 thanks to that pesky high cost of living. Fast Company goes into more detail exactly how rough the Silicon Valley housing market is, even for those making higher incomes from tech jobs (spoiler alert, software engineers are spending 42-54% of income on housing, when 30% is what’s considered affordable).
And yes, Austin is plenty accustomed to being ranked best of lots of things in the U.S., but any time we get a top ranking for best in the world? Well, that’s when it’s time to put on some Jay-Z, brush those shoulders off, and be proud that you live in one of the best cities in the whole world. Now go hug a bat or something (just kidding please, please do not go hug a bat).
Here are just a few of the previous times that Austin was ranked high on a world list:
Best Hotels in the World by Travel and Leisure
Best Street Food by Outside Magazine
Best Airports in the World by the Airport Service Quality Awards
