Tech Industry Demographics, Worth And More – Zippia (2024)

Research Summary: The tech industry has come a long way over the past few decades. As of today, the industry has become inseparable from many jobs, schooling, and everyday life. With that in mind, you might be wondering how big the tech industry really is.

To find out more about the tech industry’s worth and tech demographics, we’ve gathered all of the latest tech industry statistics. According to our extensive research:

• The U.S. tech industry was estimated to reach a market value of $1.8 trillion by the end of 2022

• There were 264,500 tech industry jobs added to the market in 2022.

• The U.S. tech market accounts for 35% of the total world market.

• The U.S. tech industry is expected to grow by 5.4% in 2023.

• The U.S. tech industry employs roughly 12.2 million workers as of 2020.

• There are over 585,000 tech companies in the U.S.

For further analysis, we broke down the data in the following ways:
Employers + Employees | Employee Demographics | Trends

U.S. Economy and Tech Industry Statistics

With 12.2 million tech industry workers, it’s unsurprising that tech has a huge impact on the U.S. economy. To find out just how much the tech industry impacts the U.S. economy, we’ve gathered a bunch of useful statistics. Here are the insights our research uncovered:

• Net tech employment accounts for 7.9% of the total U.S. workforce.

  This accounts for the 7.7 million tech industry jobs, as well as the 8 million tech occupation jobs. Plus, the number of tech jobs has only grown faster since the start of the pandemic.

  For instance, in 2019, there was only a 0.1% growth in tech industry jobs, while that number now has risen to 2%. That’s the difference between 11,000 new jobs vs over 245,000.

• The tech industry accounted for over 10% of the total U.S. GDP in 2022.

  Which, while considerable, has also been fairly consistent. For example, in 2019 and 2020 the tech industry accounted for 10% and 10.5% of the GDP, respectively. Therefore, the industry’s prominence has been apparent for several years now.

• The tech industry is in second place for driving the U.S. economy.

  Behind only the healthcare industry, the tech industry drives the economy even more than construction, retail, and non-durable manufacturing. For instance, retail makes up 5.5% of total GDP, and non-durable manufacturing 4.8%. The contributions of both are smaller than the tech industry’s 7.9% piece of the GDP pie.



• Tech employees earn up to 85% more than those in other industries.

  And this number becomes even more inflated in certain areas. For example, tech workers in San Jose, California, earn up to 507% more than the average area salary.

  By far, Alabama offers the highest salaries when compared to other jobs in the state, with tech workers making 85% more than the average salary.

  However, there are also states where this percentage isn’t as pronounced, such as Wyoming, where the average tech employee only makes 32% more.

• North America, Asia, and Europe comprise most of the world’s IT industry.

  35% of the tech industry’s market share is controlled by North America, 31% by Asia, and 22% by Europe. While Africa and Latin America have made signficant gains over the past few years, the developed markets have also continued to grow.

  

  Overall, the global tech industry is valued at roughly $5.2 trillion.

Tech Industry Statistics by Employers and Employees

With such a significant impact on the economy, it’s unsurprising that there are several big tech companies in the U.S. How exactly do these companies and their employees operate? Here are the insights our research uncovered:

• The average income for a tech industry professional across the U.S. is $71,809.

  That’s roughly $20,000 more per year than the average American salary, which is $51,480 a year. Even those starting in the tech industry make an average of $53,000, still more than the average American salary.

• Amazon, Apple, Google, and Facebook are known as the “Big Four” and are collectively worth $4 trillion dollars.

  In total, these companies employ roughly 1.68 million people, with a majority of these workers coming from Amazon (1.3 million).

• There are at least 585,000 tech companies in the U.S.

  This is remarkable, considering the fact that the ‘Big Four’ and Microsoft make up approximately 20% of the overall market.

• The largest tech acquisition of 2020 was carried out by Nvidia, which purchased Arm for $40 billion dollars.

  Other major acquisitions of 2020 included AMD’s purchase of Xilinx for $35 billion and Salesforce’s purchase of Slack for $27.7 billion. Unsurprisingly, all of these companies currently have healthy stocks.

Tech Industry Statistics by Employee Demographics

Considering the fact that the tech industry employs over 12 million Americans, you might be wondering what the demographics of those employees are. The truth is that the industry is rather skewed. Here are the facts:

• Massachusetts has the highest proportion of tech workers to the population, with roughly 6% of the population employed in the industry.

  While Massachusetts only has 440,793 tech workers compared to California’s 1.86 million, Massachusetts’ much smaller population means that there are more tech workers in proportion to the total population.

  However, California and Virginia are still close seconds, with roughly 5% of their population comprised of tech workers.

State	Net Tech Employment
California	1,866,951
Texas	1,025,106
New York	679,083
Florida	585,296
Virginia	446,507
Pennsylvania	445,168
Illinois	441,205
Massachusetts	440,793
Michigan	412,324
Ohio	401,066

• As of 2022, 73.3% of tech industry workers are men.

  While only 26.7% are female. What’s also interesting is that this gap seems to be widening, not shrinking. 28.49% of the industry was female in 2010 and 27.51% in 2011. On average, women also earn over $3,000 per year less than their male counterparts in the industry.



Year	Male	Female
2022	73.30%	26.70%
2021	72.74%	27.26%
2020	74.50%	25.50%
2019	75.98%	24.02%
2018	77.22%	22.78%
2017	76.53%	23.47%
2016	76.62%	23.38%
2015	76.49%	23.51%
2014	74.79%	25.21%
2013	74.42%	25.58%
2012	73.90%	26.10%
2011	72.49%	27.51%
2010	71.51%	28.49%

• Despite only accounting for 5.4% of the total U.S. population, Asians make up 11.1% of tech industry workers.

  And this trend becomes even starker when you consider average salaries, as the average Asian tech worker makes over $7,000 more per year than their white counterparts and over $9,000 more per year than their black counterparts.

• White individuals are the most represented demographic in the U.S. tech industry, at 61% of the employee count.

  However, this number has decreased slightly since 2010, when white workers comprised 63.89% of the tech workforce.

• Despite accounting for 12.1% of the U.S. population, Black workers only account for 10.2% of tech industry workers.

  While this isn’t a huge gap, it does fit into a larger trend in the industry. For example, black workers also have the lowest salaries in the industry, at $61,061



• 55% of tech employees are 40 years old or older.

  This is by far the largest portion of workers, as only 29% of employees are 30-40, and 16% are 20-30. That means that there are more 40+ tech workers than the other two age demographics combined.

Tech Industry Trends and Predictions

Considering the fact that Tech is still a relatively new industry, it’s interesting to see just how much of an impact it’s had on the U.S. economy and the everyday life of Americans. Here are some significant tech industry trends, according to our research:

• Today, over 90% of Americans have access to the internet.

  See Also

  IT Spending by Industry | Flexera Blog

  While that number was only around 50% in 2000, further, in 2000 only 7% of the world had access to the internet, while estimates today put that number at over half.

• The U.S. tech industry is expected to have a CAGR of 5% through 2024.

  While this is a healthy growth rate, it doesn’t consider the most fast-growing areas of the industry. For instance, the Augmented Reality (AR) market is expected to grow by a CAGR of 100% between 2021–2025.

• 84% of businesses believe that AI will allow them to obtain or sustain a competitive advantage.

  However, this is not necessarily good news for employees, as at least 22% of executives indicated that reducing headcount would be a primary benefit of AI.

• The cloud computing sector is expected to have a CAGR of 17.5% by 2025.

  That’s considerable growth, as the cloud computing sector was worth $371.4 billion in 2020 and could be worth up to $832.1 billion in 2025.

Tech Industry Statistics FAQ

1. How much is the tech industry worth?

   As of 2021, the global tech industry is worth roughly $5.2 trillion. Most of this money is divided up between North America (35%), Asia (32%), and Europe (22%). The U.S., in particular, has the biggest tech industry in the world, with an approximate worth of $1.8 trillion. If you’re wondering how big that is, it’s 10.5% of the United States’ total GDP.

2. What is the growth rate of the tech industry?

   The overall tech industry is estimated to have a growth rate (CAGR) of 5% through 2024. However, there are sects of the industry expected to grow much faster, such as Augmented Reality (AR), which is predicted to have a CAGR of 100% by 2025, and the Cloud Computing Sector, which is expected to have a CAGR of 17.5% by 2025.

   Likewise, the growth of the tech industry has impacted Americans in profound ways. For instance, only around 50% of Americans had access to the internet in 2000, while that number is over 90% today.

3. Which tech sectors are growing the fastest?

   The three tech sectors that are currently growing the fastest are Blockchain DeFi, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality (AR/VR).

   Blockchain DeFi’s CAGR through 2025 is 67.3%, while Artificial Intelligence (AI)’s CAGR is 40.2%, and Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality (AR/VR)’s CAGR is a massive 100%.

4. How many jobs are available in technology?

   There are at least 3.97 million tech jobs available in the US as of 2022. And this number continues to grow. In 2021 roughly 245,000 new tech jobs were added to that number, and by the end of 2022 there will be another 178,000 added. Overall, the industry is massive and will continue to offer new employment opportunities.

Conclusion

Contributing 10.5% of the total U.S. GDP, it’s important not to understand just how important the U.S. tech industry really is. Not only does the industry comprise 35% of the global market, but it’s also responsible for nearly doubling internet access in less than 20 years.

Today, the U.S. tech industry is still going strong, with an overall CAGR of 5%. New technologies such as Blockchain DeFi, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Virtual Reality Augmented Reality (AR VR) are thriving and growing. It’s no wonder then that the average tech industry employee makes around $20,000 more per year than the average American.

However, there are still discrepancies. Male White and Asian employees dominate the employee base and make a few thousand dollars more per year than their Female Black and Hispanic counterparts. With that in mind, many could argue that the tech industry has a diversity problem.

Luckily, there have been 264,500 new jobs added to the industry in 2022.

References

1. CompTIA. “State of the Tech Workforce Cyberstates 2021.” Accessed on November 3rd, 2021.

2. Statista. “Tech sector as a percentage of total gross domestic product (GDP) in the United States from 2017 to 2020.” Accessed on November 3rd, 2021.

3. Investopedia. “The 5 Industries Driving the U.S. Economy.” Accessed on November 3rd, 2021.

4. TechRepublic. “Tech professionals make up to 85% more than state averages in other industries.” Accessed on November 3rd, 2021.

5. TechRepublic. “US tech industry had 12.1 million employees in 2019.” Accessed on November 4th, 2021.

6. Zippia. “Information Technology Professional Demographics And Statistics In The US.” Accessed on November 4th, 2021.

7. World Economic Forum. “How has technology changed – and changed us – in the past 20 years?” Accessed on November 4th, 2021.

8. CompTIA. “It Industry Outlook 2021.” Accessed on November 4th, 2021.

9. Forbes. “How Artificial Intelligence Is Revolutionizing Business In 2017.” Accessed on November 4th, 2021.

10. Yahoo!. “14 Best Cloud Computing Stocks To Invest In.” Accessed on November 4th, 2021.

11. BBC. “How much power does tech ‘big four’ have?” Accessed on November 4th, 2021.

12. New York Times. “Big Tech’s Domination of Business Reaches New Heights.” Accessed on November 4th, 2021.

13. ComputerWorld. “Biggest technology acquisitions of 2020.” Accessed on November 4th, 2021.