A number of smaller, lesser known cities across the nation are making names for themselves when it comes to STEM career opportunities.
Tech savvy workers on the hunt for gainful employment might want to set their sights on locations outside the traditional boundaries of Silicon Valley and Washington State.
A number of smaller, lesser known cities across the nation are making names for themselves when it comes to supporting high-tech ventures.
To find where in the country STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) employment opportunities are brisk, Bloomberg crunched numbers from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics as of May 2014.
When all was said and done, San Jose and San Francisco, unsurprisingly, topped the chart in STEM pay rank, but they also scored number one and two, respectively, in cost of living. Washington, D.C., and Seattle, Wash., also ranked expectedly high.
Surprises, however, started entering the list a little further down with places such as Huntsville, Ala., Boulder, Co., and Charlotte, N.C., all ranking high, along with a host of other less STEM-traditional towns.
While places like Huntsville might seem unlikely locations to find high-tech employment, Bloomberg notes that many smaller cities whose economies reeled as factories closed have been strategically positioning themselves for years to attract high-tech employers.
Huntsville is just one location where local leaders have joined forces to redefine their regions as growing tech centers.
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Fueled initially by government research funding, Huntsville worked its NASA ties into a booming aerospace and defense-related industrial base. The arrival of companies like Lockheed Martin and Boeing injected the economy with cash, which leaders, in turn, pumped into public schools and other ventures to support a well-paid, well-educated populace. A symphony orchestra was born, restaurants opened and other attractors, such as a craft brew scene, all came into being.
With an average STEM pay of $92,380, according to Bloomberg, and a low cost of living, Huntsville has made quite a case for itself with STEM enterprises looking to startup or relocate. It’s not alone, and the reasons behind the shift out of Silicon Valley are clear.
“Pay someone $125,000 in San Francisco, and they wind up living in a house with four roommates and are constantly asking for a raise or scheming on how to get a job at Facebook or Google,” Donovan Duncan, Curse video games’ vice president of marketing, was quoted by Bloomberg as saying. In Huntsville, however, that same worker can enjoy a comfortable lifestyle, he said.
To identify the top 100 metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) in regard to STEM employment, analysts focused on which MSAs had the most STEM-related jobs, what pay was like in those regions and how cost of living stacked up.
To determine cost-of-living rankings, Bloomberg’s analysts looked at median STEM pay in the areas versus the cost-of-living index spelled out by the U.S. Census in June 2015.
