New York - An Opportunity We Could Not Miss

Originally Posted on LinkedIn - March 2015

It was an opportunity that we just could not miss. The company had been looking at various options for where to base its next office but with the New York technology industry one of the fastest growing in the world with a 40% increase in employment since 2008, the decision was relatively easy.

When you think of tech in USA, you automatically think of Silicon Valley, and whilst they obviously have a larger workforce, New York's tech scene, is catching up. Jones Lang LaSalle recently reported that the year-on-year industry growth in New York is 8.4% compared to 5.2% in Silicon Valley.

The likelihood is that, sensing opportunity, many of Silicon Valley's workers may try their hand on the East coast. GCS has seen something similar in the UK in the mid-1990s when there was a boom in the Thames Valley IT sector. Talent from elsewhere in the country flocked to the region, strengthening the local workforce which led Reading and the surrounding area to become a European centre of excellence for technology.

Right now, Silicon Valley may have more than twice the number of technology workers of NYC but, if projections are correct, within the next ten years, New York will have drastically reduced this gap whilst creating more employment opportunities overall within the IT sector - and more options for the people who work within it.

New York is always a great place to be but, right now, it seems that it is poised to become THE place to be if you're in any way involved in the technology industry and, as I said to start this post, that's an opportunity that neither GCS or I were willing to miss.