Canada’s technology workforce is gaining ground across North America, with six Canadian cities now ranked among the continent’s top 15 tech-talent markets.
Toronto held the third position in CBRE’s 2026 Scoring Tech Talent report, behind only the San Francisco Bay Area and Seattle. Vancouver rose to ninth, Waterloo Region placed 10th, Montréal climbed to 11th, Ottawa ranked 14th, and Calgary landed at 15th.
It is the first time Canada has put six markets in the top 15. Quebec City and Edmonton also appeared in the top 50, ranking 37th and 42nd, respectively.
The annual report compares 50 established technology markets in Canada and the United States using 13 measures, including the concentration of tech workers, the talent pipeline, research and development investment, and operating costs. CBRE defines tech talent across more than 20 occupations, from software developers and data scientists to hardware engineers and information-systems managers, regardless of the industry employing them.
Canada’s showing reflects more than strong rankings. The country added 91,300 tech-talent jobs in 2025, an increase of 7.6%, compared with 1.8% growth in the United States. Canada’s 1.3 million tech workers now account for 7% of the national workforce, versus 4% in the U.S.
Toronto led all North American markets by adding 75,000 tech jobs between 2022 and 2025. Calgary posted the continent’s fastest growth rate over the same period at 56%, while Waterloo Region grew 37% and Toronto expanded 27%.
The gains are also spreading beyond the technology industry itself. In Canada, the finance, insurance and real estate sector and the transportation, warehousing and wholesale sector each grew their tech workforces by roughly 9.5% last year. The high-tech industry accounted for 29% of the country’s new tech jobs.
Artificial intelligence is accelerating the shift. CBRE found that the number of AI-skilled tech workers across Canada and the U.S. surged 45% year over year to 751,000 as of mid-2026.
In Canada, that talent remains highly concentrated: Toronto, Montréal, and Vancouver account for 60% of the country’s AI-skilled workforce. Toronto alone has more than 33,000 AI workers, making it the fifth-largest AI employment market in North America.
“Canadian cities are at the forefront of AI adoption,” said CBRE Canada Research Managing Director Marc Meehan in the firm’s Canadian market announcement.
The expanding AI economy is also leaving a physical footprint. AI companies occupy about five million square feet of Canadian office space, according to CBRE, including three million square feet in Toronto and nearly one million in Montréal.
Canada’s depth extends beyond its largest hubs. In CBRE’s separate ranking of 25 emerging markets, Halifax placed second, London, Ontario ranked fifth, and Winnipeg came in 11th. Those results suggest employers seeking specialized talent—and workers looking beyond the country’s biggest cities—have a widening range of Canadian markets to consider.
The report also carries a caution beneath the growth figures. AI is changing the mix of technology work as employers add specialized roles while automating or eliminating more routine positions. CBRE expects the technology to alter the composition of employment more than the overall number of jobs.
For Canada, the immediate picture remains one of momentum: a fast-growing national workforce, a deepening bench of AI skills, and more cities competing among North America’s leading technology centres.