The Western U.S. is the home of the American tech industry. From Silicon Valley to Seattle, the region’s largest metros account for the highest concentrations of tech jobs and the deepest patent records in the country. But, the West’s tech scene is no longer just a coastal one. Now, smaller and mid-size metros across Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Idaho, and Oregon are now among the fastest-growing tech markets in the country with the kind of conditions, low costs, strong universities, and aggressive recruitment from local economic development agencies that increasingly draw both companies and workers away from the coast.

With that in mind, we set out to rank the Western metros with the best conditions for the tech industry — and the workers it depends on — to thrive. Specifically, we evaluated every metro area in the region with a population above 200,000 for which all data was available (more than 70 metros in total) and awarded points across metrics covering the density and growth of tech establishments; the density and growth of tech employment; median tech earnings and their growth; a composite life-quality index; and five-year patent output. The 20 metros that rose to the top of that pool are profiled below.

San Jose, Calif., Outpaces Field as Colorado Lands 4 Metros in Western Top 20

San Jose, Calif., rose to the top of the West with 73 points out of 100 to finish nearly 20 points ahead of San Francisco on the strength of its tech workforce. In San Jose, some 15% of all jobs in the metro sit in computer and mathematical roles (the only figure in the study above 10%). Additionally, median tech wages hit $196,595 — the highest in the West — and the metro placed second on educational attainment.

San Jose firms were also granted roughly 67,000 USPTO patents between 2020 and 2024, which was nearly double the next metro on the list.

In second place, San Francisco had the most firms receiving tech patents. Here, roughly 2,500 companies and organizations were granted approximately 35,000 patents between 2020 and 2024. Whereas San Jose’s patent output is concentrated among a handful of household-name tech giants, San Francisco’s is spread across a much wider and more varied base of firms, including smaller companies and startups working in fintech, biotech and adjacent industries. San Francisco is also home to more than 7,000 tech companies in raw numbers, as compared to roughly 3,854 in San Jose. And, while tech makes up a larger share of San Jose’s overall business base (therefore giving it the edge on tech company density), San Francisco placed third. Tech workers in the City by the Bay also earned a median wage of $165,167, trailing only San Jose.

Not to be outdone, Boulder, Colo., is the West’s standout metro for educational attainment with 66.5% of adults holding a bachelor’s degree or higher. Notably, educational attainment is one of three metrics in our life-quality index, and Boulder scored highest of any metro in the study. In that regard, we can point locally to CU Boulder, an institution that not only is a source of talent, but has also been instrumental in expanding the metro’s tech company base through spinouts and startups. Plus, on a per-capita basis, Boulder ranks second on tech company density with nearly 60 tech firms per 1,000 companies and third on tech workforce density with 87.8 of every 1,000 jobs in tech roles.

Back on the coast, Seattle came in fourth by posting the highest tech employment density outside of California and median tech earnings that ranked third in the study, trailing only San Jose, Calif., and San Francisco. Seattle’s patent output, too, trailed only the two Bay Area entries. It’s worth noting that Seattle’s tech sector runs on heavy investment from a relatively small number of very large employers (Amazon and Microsoft being chief among them), rather than a wide startup base, which shows up in an establishment density that’s lower than several metros ranked below it.

Closing out the top five, Bend, Ore., is the smallest metro in the top 20 by a comfortable margin with just 264,000 residents and tech-density scores that trail most of the metros ranked below it. Yet, what carried it here is the pace at which its tech economy is expanding: Bend posted the highest tech establishment growth (22%) and the highest median tech earnings growth (90%) of any qualifying metro. In this case, the Bend Venture Conferecne — one of the Pacific Northwest’s largest angel investment events — has brought attention and capital to the metro’s early-stage companies. What’s more, Bend also ranked #4 in the Milken Institute’s Best Performing Small Cities report. Even so, for now, the ecosystem remains in its early stages and heavily reliant on remote workers employed by companies in larger markets.