Waterloo Region has been ranked among the top 10 technology talent markets in North America, according to a new report from commercial real estate firm CBRE. The region placed 10th in CBRE’s 2026 Scoring Tech Talent report, which ranks the top technology employment markets across Canada and the United States. “Waterloo Region continues to kind of punch above its weight, you know, being ranked among kind of North America’s top tech talents, driven by like a, our world-class pipeline, the talent pipeline. We’ve got strong AI capabilities and one of Canada’s most innovative business ecosystems. It shows we’re going up against even, you know, the Toronto and Vancouver behemoths that we’ve seen in the tech community,” said Todd Cooney, senior vice-president at CBRE. Last year, Waterloo Region jumped from 18th in 2024 to seventh, but it dropped three spots to 10th in this year’s report. Cooney, who works out of CBRE’s Kitchener, Ont., office, said Waterloo Region is the only small market in the top 10. “It really just comes down to, I think, the crawl back from some of the other major metros. I think we were seeing a little bit of a resurgence, obviously, in a bunch of the different tech sectors. And when you take a look at the reshuffling of the order, it’s nothing that is against Waterloo Region per se. It’s more so about kind of the active groups and the growing companies that we’ve seen in some of the other major metros that we’re up against in the top 10,” Cooney said. Nearly 42,000 tech workers are in Waterloo Region, making up just over 12 per cent of the local workforce. Of those, 67 per cent are software engineers, making the region one of the areas with the highest concentrations of software engineers in the rankings. “That workforce has grown significantly. We’re small but mighty. And what we always discuss when we go up against all these other major tech communities, it’s like, talent is the currency of innovation, right? We continue to outproduce some of the major tech hubs,” Cooney said. Cooney added that from a real estate standpoint, rent is still cheaper here than in major hubs and it costs less to pay talent than in most major cities. “The real estate decision is easy. Because when you take a look at the Canadian dollar, you take a look at where our rents line up with other major tech markets, we’re still at a discount. And then more importantly, it’s the discount in terms of the talent. Like you are paying far less than what you would be paying in San Jose for a software engineer,” Cooney said. “I think it’s a beautiful place where you can source the top talent but also have a really good life when it comes to cost of living. And I think that’s one big thing we got going for us, even outside of the other two Canadian cities that made the top 10.” Other noteworthy Canadian markets included Toronto, which ranked third, Vancouver at ninth and Montreal at 11th. Ottawa ranked 14th and Calgary 15th, giving Canada six markets in the top 15 and eight in the top 50. Quebec City ranked 37th and Edmonton 42nd. CBRE’s 13th annual report analyzes 75 U.S. and Canadian markets using 13 measures, including tech talent concentration, talent pipeline, and research and development investment. The report also highlights rapid growth in artificial intelligence-related employment. The number of workers with AI skills in Canada and the U.S. grew by 45 per cent over the past year, with about 751,000 AI-related workers recorded as of June 2026. Canada’s AI workforce is particularly concentrated in three cities, with 60 per cent of AI jobs based in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. AI companies across Canada occupy about five million square feet of office space, with three million square feet located in Toronto and nearly one million square feet in Montreal. “Canadian cities are at the forefront of AI adoption,” Marc Meehan, CBRE Canada’s managing director of research, said in a release. “Having six markets in the top 15 and eight cities in the top 50 is impressive for a country our size.” “The AI economy isn’t coming, it’s already here. And what we’ve got is brilliant minds to help lead that. So, I think we’re heavily relying on the people that understand it and having it grow organically similar to what we saw back in 2000,” Cooney said. The report said Canadian technology employment growth has rebounded in recent years. “Canada has been the dominant growth story for tech talent over the past five years, with many U.S. and Canadian tech firms tapping into the high quality and comparatively affordable talent on offer here,” Meehan said. CBRE defines tech talent as highly skilled workers across more than 20 technology-related occupations, including software developers, hardware engineers, and computer and information systems managers.
