Rising seven spots, Sierra Vista is ranked as the third best city in the United States for tech workers in an annual study published by New York based personal finance technology company SmartAsset this week.
After cracking the top 10 in the study last year, Sierra Vista remains the only city in Arizona to make the list of the top 25. SmartAsset ranked 201 cities that had data for the five metrics it uses and noted that only 12 other cities in the study had a higher concentration of tech workers than Sierra Vista.
“Sierra Vista is something of a tech hub with 5.4 percent of workers employed in the field,” SmartAsset says. “Secondly, working in tech in Sierra Vista is a high paying gig … On average tech workers in Sierra Vista make $81,400 per year.”
Sierra Vista also scored above average when it comes to the unemployment rate of people with a bachelor’s degree and the ratio of a tech wage compared to an average wage in the community. The study also looked at cost of living. Columbus, Ohio, and Springfield, Illinois, were the only cities with a higher overall score than Sierra Vista.
“This top three ranking demonstrates that Sierra Vista should be on the short list of communities for tech workers seeking quality jobs and tech companies looking to expand,” Sierra Vista Economic Development Manager Tony Boone says. “With one of the best community colleges in the nation, and a new bachelor’s program in cyber operations at University of Arizona South, Sierra Vista has the educational foundation required to meet the workforce needs of growing companies in tech fields.”