LoginInformation jobs are growing across the country, largely in expected ways but also with some surprises. Forbes ranked the nation's metropolitan areas with more than 10,000 IT positions by job growth over the last 12 years. The top four spots for these positions were, somewhat predictably, Silicon Valley, the San Francisco Bay Area, the Boston metro area, and Austin.
Employment in the sector is growing in some less traditional places, too. The Phoenix area placed ninth on the list, adding as many jobs in 2013 as San Francisco, according to Arizona State University.
The regions experiencing the greatest employment increases demonstrated how much the landscape is changing for the information technology industry. Though Los Angeles and New York City still rank first and second, respectively, for the number of jobs in the sector, they fell at 27th and 13th place for growth.
Still, more locales are expected to outpace the current biggest players soon. Forbes noted that many areas fell short of the 10,000-job requirement for their list but were benefiting from rapid growth. Provo-Orem, Utah, for instance, has had seen 21 percent expansion since 2008, now falling just 200 jobs short of Forbes's requisites. Other high-growth areas included Chapel Hill, North Carolina, which is poised to join Raleigh as the only places in the state to make the cut.