Industry Report: The State of Tech in Denver

Tech’s future is bright in the Mile High City.

Denver has focused on scaling their technology sector for years, but the last 12 months brought massive growth that signals an exciting new chapter in the city’s evolution as a tech hub. Though the typical West Coast tech capitals still lead the industry, Denver’s surge (and Colorado’s as a whole) has closed the gap between the city and longtime giants like San Francisco and Seattle.

To better understand the maturity and future of Denver’s tech scene, we took a deep dive into several key growth indicators, including software developer jobs and the number of tech firms expanding or opening their doors throughout the city.

Denver’s Information industry (comprising computer programming, systems design, and telecommunication) grew 7.5% in the past year, three times more than the county-wide average and significantly higher than other large industries (including healthcare and financial services). In the last 12 months, 953 new tech jobs were added.

Denver has very favorable tech to non-tech job rates. That is, it employs developers at higher rates than most other major tech cities.

→ It currently ranks 4th — after San Francisco, Silicon Valley, and Seattle — in terms of application developer employment: 11.8 app devs per 1,000 jobs (we looked at application developers specifically because they represent the largest pool of tech workers).

→ Though application development is the most popular, Denver is also home to 7,200 systems developers and 1,400 web developers.

Given this pattern, total developer jobs in Denver could soon surpass Boston and Chicago.

As for tech density, Denver is still far from the country’s top three markets. However, it’s a clear leader among emerging markets — think Washington, D.C. and Chicago. Relatedly,  Boulder, too, has a high concentration of app developers: 27.89 per 1,000 jobs.

Further, Denver is famous for its high quality of living, ranking 3rd in U.S. News & World Report’s list of Best Places to Live. The only cities with a lower cost of living are Dallas and Atlanta. Though Denver developers earn on average $44,000 less each year than they would in San Francisco, their dollar goes a lot further due to lower costs of housing, groceries, healthcare, and transportation. Denver’s cost of living index is 15% lower than Seattle and 37% lower than San Francisco.

Note: While the cost of living is comparatively low, city residents are seeing housing and education costs go up — partly due to the influx of technology.

Given the increased demand, we must also examine the supply side of the job market. In doing so, we see a skills shortage — Denver’s tech job openings are outpacing the number of people to fill those roles.

Because there is no recent data about computer science and computer engineering degrees conferred by city, we looked at the broader category of science and engineering degrees by state to get a proxy for workforce supply. Here, Colorado performs above the rest of the nation in terms of graduates per capita. In 2017, 14,215 degrees were conferred — a 17% jump since 2013.

Despite that growth, LinkedIn Workforce Report identifies “Development Tools” as one of the top 10 skill shortages in Denver. In May 2019, it estimated a shortage of about 8,607 people.

In recent years, coding schools — like Flatiron School — have stepped up to up-skill workers and help people transition to a career in tech, and could potentially help close the gap.

As Denver’s tech industry matures, Flatiron School aims to modernize tech education in the city by raising the bar on accountability. Since our founding in 2012, Flatiron School has published six third-party audited outcomes reports that transparently show job placement rates for graduates — how many of our graduates successfully get jobs. The most recent, from 2018, can be viewed here.

Flatiron School’s 15-week Software Engineering course immerses students in two full stacks, Ruby and JavaScript, preparing them for entry-level developer jobs. Hired.com recently reported that Ruby is one of the three most in-demand languages that leads to interview requests, while JavaScript is far and away the most utilized language by developers. For more information on Flatiron School courses, visit our Denver overview.

Sources:

• Census.gov Cost of Living Index: https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/2011/compendia/statab/131ed/tables/12s0728.xls

• Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wages: https://www.bls.gov/oes/2017/may/oes151132.htm

• Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d17/tables/dt17_322.10.asp?current=yes

• Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment Projections: https://www.bls.gov/emp/tables/occupational-separations-and-openings.htm

• Projections Central, State Occupational Projections: http://www.projectionscentral.com/

• Bureau of Labor Statistics, Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages: https://beta.bls.gov/maps/cew/US?period=2018-Q2&industry=10&pos_color=blue&neg_color=orange&Update=Update&chartData=2&ownerType=5&distribution=Quantiles#tab1

• LinkedIn May 2019 Workforce Report: https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/blog/linkedin-workforce-report-may-2019-denver-co

• Metro Denver Economic Development Corporation: http://www.metrodenver.org/do-business/news-deals/

• National Science Foundation, Science & Engineering State Indicators: https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/state-indicators/indicator/se-bachelors-degrees-per-1000-18-24-year-olds/table