CBRE ranked eight Canadian cities among North America's top 50 tech talent markets in its latest assessment released this week, which also placed Halifax second among emerging markets.
Toronto remained the highest-ranked Canadian market in third place overall. Vancouver rose to the ninth position and Waterloo Region held number 10. Montreal climbed four places to 11th, while Ottawa ranked 14th and Calgary 15th, giving Canada six cities in the top 15.
On a separate list of the next 25 emerging tech markets, Halifax ranked second in North America, followed by London, Ont., in fifth.
The annual study reviewed 75 markets in the United States and Canada. It ranks the top 50 established markets and identifies 25 emerging markets using a weighted analysis of 13 measures, including tech talent concentration, the supply of new workers and research-and-development investment.
CBRE defines tech talent as highly skilled workers in more than 20 technology-focused occupations across all industries, including computer and information systems managers, software developers and hardware engineers.
The report found that the number of tech workers in the United States and Canada with artificial-intelligence skills rose 45 per cent over the past year. By June 2026, the two countries had 751,000 AI-related workers.
That growth remains concentrated in a small number of cities. In the United States, 37 per cent of AI jobs are based in the San Francisco Bay Area, New York City, Seattle and Washington, D.C. In Canada, 60 per cent are located in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver.
Toronto ranked fifth in North America for AI employment with 33,419 workers. The San Francisco Bay Area had 98,699 AI workers, while New York Metro had 67,949.
AI growth also affected office demand in Canada. AI companies across the country occupy about five million square feet of office space, including 3.0 million square feet in Toronto. Montreal is the second-largest AI market by office footprint, with nearly one million square feet.
Marc Meehan, Research Managing Director at CBRE Canada, said the rankings reflect sustained momentum in the country's technology labour market.
"Canadian cities are at the forefront of AI adoption. Having six markets in the top 15 and eight cities in the top 50 is impressive for a country our size," Meehan said. "Canada has been the dominant growth story for tech talent over the past five years, with many U.S. and Canadian tech firms tapping into the high-quality and comparatively affordable talent on offer here."
The report also linked the spread of AI-related hiring to commercial-property demand in several sectors, including offices, data centres and housing tied to employment growth.
"Job growth tied to AI will influence most commercial real estate sectors, from offices to data centers to multifamily," said John Morris, Group President of Advisory Leasing in the U.S. and Canada at CBRE. "Inevitably, some jobs will be eliminated over time as AI takes on more routine tasks. But CBRE's view is that AI will change job composition more than it will overall job count."