job market

Report: Houston tech workforce sees steady growth

According to a new report, Houston's a growing hub for tech jobs. Photo via Getty Images

The Houston metro area may not enjoy a national profile as a tech hub, but the region is a growing force in tech employment.

The State of the Tech Workforce report, released by the CompTIA trade group, found that the Houston metro area added 5,090 tech jobs in 2022. That put Houston at No. 9 among major U.S. metro areas for growth in tech jobs last year. Tech employment in the region grew 3.5 percent in 2022 versus 2021, compared with the national growth rate of 3.2 percent.

“In a year of even more uncertainty than usual, the tech labor market routinely defied expectations,” Tim Herbert, chief research officer at CompTIA, says in a news release. “The data continues to confirm the degree to which technology underpins so many facets of business activity across the economy and the breadth of employers reliant on technical and digital skills.”

CompTIA predicts the tech workforce in the Houston area will grow 2.2 percent this year, down more than a full percentage point from 2022. The projected growth rate would represent about 3,300 new jobs.

These are the tech jobs that CompTIA expects to see the biggest gains here in 2023:

  • Software developer
  • Software programmer
  • Web developer
  • Software quality assurance specialist
  • Database specialist
  • Data scientist
  • Computer scientist
  • Cybersecurity specialist
  • Systems engineer

The share of Houston-area job postings for roles in emerging technology or those requiring emerging-tech skills accounted for nearly one-fourth (24.4 percent) of the region’s job postings in 2022, the report says. These jobs are in areas such as artificial intelligence, robotics, and blockchain.

An estimated 150,145 people work in tech-related jobs in Houston, with a median wage of $89,197, according to the report. That wage is 112 percent higher than the median wage for all occupations in the region.

The tech sector generates an estimated economic impact of $20.7 billion for the Houston metro area, making up 3.3 percent of the entire local economy, CompTIA says.

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Building Houston

 
 

Baylor College of Medicine's Lillie and Roy Cullen Tower is set to open in 2026. Rendering courtesy of BCM

Baylor College of Medicine has collected $100 million toward its $150 million fundraising goal for the college’s planned Lillie and Roy Cullen Tower.

The $100 million in gifts include:

  • A total of $30 million from The Cullen Foundation, The Cullen Trust for Health Care, and The Cullen Trust for Higher Education.
  • $12 million from the DeBakey Medical Foundation
  • $10 million from the Huffington Foundation
  • More than $45 million from members of Baylor’s Board of Trustees and other community donors, including the M.D. Anderson Foundation, the Albert and Margaret Alkek Foundation, and The Elkins Foundation.

“The Cullen Trust for Health Care is very honored to support this building along with The Cullen Foundation and The Cullen Trust for Higher Education,” Cullen Geiselman Muse, chair of The Cullen Trust for Health Care, says in a news release. “We cannot wait to see what new beginnings will come from inside the Lillie and Roy Cullen Tower.”

The Baylor campus is next to Texas Medical Center’s Helix Park, a 37-acre project. Rendering courtesy of BCM

The Lillie and Roy Cullen Tower is set to open in 2026. The 503,000-square-foot tower is the first phase of Baylor’s planned Health Sciences Park, an 800,000-square-foot project that will feature medical education and research adjacent to patient care at Baylor Medicine and Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center on the McNair Campus.

The Baylor campus is next to Texas Medical Center’s Helix Park, a 37-acre project that will support healthcare, life sciences, and business ventures. Baylor is the anchor tenant in the first building being constructed at Helix Park.

“To really change the future of health, we need a space that facilitates the future,” says Dr. Paul Klotman, president, CEO, and executive dean of Baylor. “We need to have a great building to recruit great talent. Having a place where our clinical programs are located, where our data scientists are, next to a biotech development center, and having our medical students all integrated into that environment will allow them to be ready in the future for where healthcare is going.”

In the 1940s, Lillie and Roy Cullen and the M.D. Anderson Foundation were instrumental in establishing the Texas Medical Center, which is now the world’s largest medical complex.

“Baylor is the place it is today because of philanthropy,” Klotman says. “The Cullen family, the M.D. Anderson Foundation, and the Albert and Margaret Alkek Foundation have been some of Baylor’s most devoted champions, which has enabled Baylor to mold generations of exceptional health sciences professionals. It is fitting that history is repeating itself with support for this state-of-the-art education building.”

The Cullen Foundation donated $30 million to the project. Rendering courtesy of BCM

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