Toronto-Waterloo is North America’s Largest Tech Cluster

Each year, CBRE’s Scoring Tech Talent report provides a benchmark for communities to measure their tech talent credentials, and a valuable tool for tech leaders looking for their next location. The report is a comprehensive analysis of labour market conditions, assessing everything from workforce size to talent quality to salary costs.

It’s a big document – worth reading in its entirety – but we’ll give you the highlights.

Toronto-Waterloo is now North America’s biggest tech cluster

For decades, the San Francisco Bay Area has been North America’s biggest tech cluster but, according to CBRE, that changed in 2026. This year, the Toronto-Waterloo Corridor has claimed the top spot with 399,900 tech workers.

Second place, perhaps surprisingly, goes to the New York City Metro Area with 394,300 tech workers, with San Francisco Bay Area coming in third with a tech workforce of 375,730. It isn’t just the sheer size of these communities that should get your attention, though, but the direction they’re heading. According to CBRE, Toronto-Waterloo’s workforce grew by 86,400 people from 2022-2025 and New York’s grew by 30,640. But the Bay Area lost talent – shrinking by just under 24,000 tech workers over that same period.

The talent density in the Toronto-Waterloo Corridor also surpassed competitors, with Toronto’s 11.3% concentration and Waterloo’s 12.2% concentration surpassing either of New York (4.2%) or the Bay Area (10.7%).

It isn’t all bad news for the Bay Area, though. They still ranked #1 in the CBRE Talent Scorecard, followed by Seattle, Toronto, New York and Austin. CBRE doesn’t combine Toronto and Waterloo – though we are one big ecosystem – in the rankings, so it’s impossible to know whether Toronto at #3 and Waterloo at #10 could surpass the Bay Area or Seattle.

Waterloo keeps coming out ahead of bigger cities

The big story for Waterloo is that it retained its top-10 spot in the rankings, beating considerably larger communities like Raleigh-Durham, Atlanta, Denver, Chicago, Detroit and Pittsburgh. While the #10 rank is a slight decline from last year, it’s a significant increase over the previous five years, when the Waterloo region was routinely ranked in the upper teens, behind many of the communities listed above.

Another reason this is a significant achievement: Waterloo is still technically in the small market category. For the sixth consecutive year, it’s the #1 small tech talent market in North America, and the #2-ranked small market – Pittsburgh – is #28 in the overall ranking. That demonstrates how much of a unicorn Waterloo really is – it’s a small market that competes (and wins!) against far larger markets.

What’s driving these rankings? Waterloo is the second-fastest growing community in the report, home to some of the highest-quality and best-value talent in North America and boasting the second-highest concentration of tech talent in North America. The Waterloo area also still has the fastest growth rate among new graduate and millennial populations.

Why choose Waterloo for your next expansion?

The CBRE rankings are impressive, but what else does Waterloo offer growing tech companies? The Waterloo tech story starts with the University of Waterloo. Not only is it one of the top-15 tech schools in North America, but it’s also among the largest, offering access to significant new talent year after year.

With nearly 5,000 students, the University of Waterloo has a larger enrollment in computer science than UC Berkeley, MIT and Stanford combined.

But Waterloo isn’t just a talent story. It’s an ecosystem story, too. The community is home to global giants like Google, EPAM Systems, SAP and Oracle NetSuite, homegrown gems like OpenText and Faire, and hundreds of startups. We’re also home to Canada’s top innovation hub, #1 private accelerator and most productive incubator. If you’re looking for a dynamic community to grow your company in, Waterloo should be at the top of your list.

Last but not least, we’re cost-competitive. Thanks to a favourable exchange rate, lower corporate taxes and affordable office lease costs, Waterloo is a community that provides your company with tons of runway to build great new products and services. You may not be surprised to learn that Waterloo is less expensive than the Bay Area but, according to CBRE, we’re also considerably more cost-effective than Boston, Austin, Atlanta, Detroit, Chicago or – quite literally – anywhere in the United States.