NC Ranks No. 1 For Tech Job Growth As Areas Outside Of Charlotte, Triangle Gain Traction
By Symone Graham – Staff Writer, Charlotte Business Journal
Technology is no longer confined to North Carolina’s major metros. It’s becoming part of nearly every industry across the state.
That was the message from Ted Abernathy during NC TECH Association’s Outlook event recently at The Revelry at Camp North End in Charlotte, where he presented findings from the latest State of the Technology Industry Report. NC TECH Outlook is the association’s annual statewide event that brings together technology and business leaders for industry forecasts, panel discussions and the release of the STIR report.
North Carolina ranks No. 1 nationally for growth in tech occupations over the past five years, according to the report.
“Broad-based growth across tech occupations, that’s the first time we’ve been number one since we’ve been doing this,” Abernathy, managing partner of Economic Leadership, told CBJ in an interview.
That growth reflects technology’s expanding role across industries, not just within software companies or IT firms. Two-thirds of workers in technology occupations in North Carolina are employed outside of traditional tech companies.
“Not just in the tech industry, but in occupations across the breadth of our industries,” Abernathy said.
The statewide footprint of the tech sector continues to expand, with about 328,000 people working for roughly 35,000 technology companies across North Carolina.
Brooks Raiford, president and CEO of NC TECH, said the state’s economic geography helps explain that growth pattern. NC TECH is a Raleigh-based nonprofit, membership-based trade association that serves as a lead advocate for North Carolina’s technology sector.
“We have several (major metro tech hubs) and then a bunch of second-tier metros, really across the state,” Raiford said.
Charlotte has emerged as one of the strongest drivers of that momentum.
“Charlotte’s job growth is phenomenal,” Abernathy said.
The region added roughly 37,000 jobs between December 2024 and December 2025 — far outpacing other North Carolina metros — with technology embedded in financial services, enterprise software, retail and health-care sectors helping drive the growth, he said.
“I think a lot of that is driven by the technology growth inside core Charlotte businesses,” Abernathy said. “And I think the depth and breadth of what’s happened in Charlotte’s transformation to an R1 university. Those kind of things really lend itself to long-term growth here.”
Raiford said migration and remote work trends have also broadened the state’s technology workforce beyond major cities.
“People were deciding where they wanted to be first and then getting a job that would let them be there,” Raiford said.
That shift helped spread technology talent into coastal, mountain and mid-sized communities, while maintaining strong growth in Charlotte and the Triangle.
The report also highlights North Carolina’s continued strength in workforce diversity and research activity. The state ranks No. 1 nationally for the share of women working in technology and among the top states for university research and development activity.
Raiford said industry leaders continue to see strong participation from women entering technology careers, but retention remains a challenge. Many women leave the field within the first several years, prompting companies and organizations to focus on mentorship, workplace culture and support systems to help them stay and advance.
“It’s not so much that we have a hard time getting young women to go into tech,” Abernathy said. “We’re losing so many of them relative to the number of males.”
Still, he said long-term competitiveness will depend on workforce training and housing affordability as technology adoption accelerates across industries.
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