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Photo by Contributed/Province of Nova ScotiaHalifax may not have the scale of Toronto, San Francisco or Seattle, but Atlantic Canada’s largest city is building a reputation as one of North America’s most promising emerging technology markets.Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.Exclusive articles from Barbara Shecter, Joe O'Connor, Gabriel Friedman, and others.Daily content from Financial Times, the world's leading global business publication.Unlimited online access to read articles from Financial Post, National Post and 15 news sites across Canada with one account.National Post ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on.Daily puzzles, including the New York Times Crossword.Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.Exclusive articles from Barbara Shecter, Joe O'Connor, Gabriel Friedman and others.Daily content from Financial Times, the world's leading global business publication.Unlimited online access to read articles from Financial Post, National Post and 15 news sites across Canada with one account.National Post ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on.Daily puzzles, including the New York Times Crossword.Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.Access articles from across Canada with one account.Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments.Enjoy additional articles per month.Get email updates from your favourite authors.Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.Access articles from across Canada with one accountShare your thoughts and join the conversation in the commentsEnjoy additional articles per monthGet email updates from your favourite authorsSign In or Create an AccountorThe Nova Scotia capital ranks second among the 25 up-and-coming tech-talent markets in the United States and Canada, according to CBRE’s 2026 Scoring Tech Talent report.Halifax is sandwiched between top-ranked Huntsville, Ala., and No. 3 Colorado Springs.Breaking business news, incisive views, must-reads and market signals. Weekdays by 9 a.m.By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc.A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder.The next issue of Posthaste will soon be in your inbox.We encountered an issue signing you up. Please try again“It’s fairly significant,” Owen Sagness, CEO of Digital Nova Scotia — the not-for-profit industry association for the province’s tech sector — said in a phone interview from Taipei.“When you look at North America, Halifax is not even in the top 100 cities in terms of population. So, to be that high from a tech talent perspective means we’re really punching above our weight.”The ranking highlights smaller markets that are building strong technology talent pools, attracting employers and creating conditions for continued growth.Halifax’s total tech employment has grown 19.4 per cent over the past three years, reaching about 20,300 technology workers in 2025. That gives Halifax a larger tech talent pool than several better-known U.S. markets, including Las Vegas, Buffalo, Oklahoma City and Honolulu. Owen Sagness, CEO of Digital Nova Scotia, the not-for-profit industry association for the province’s tech sector. Photo by Digital Nova ScotiaThe growth is not simply about the number of technology workers. Halifax is also producing a steady pipeline of new talent.The city recorded 1,346 tech degree completions in 2024, providing employers with a growing pool of graduates entering fields such as software development, computer science and information technology.At the same time, Halifax offers a major cost advantage.Software developers in Halifax earned an average of $70,071 in 2025, an increase of 18.4 per cent over three years. Despite that wage growth, Halifax had the most affordable total tech wages among all 75 markets analyzed in CBRE’s report.That combination — strong employment growth, an expanding talent pipeline and comparatively affordable labour — is increasingly attractive to companies looking for alternatives to the high costs of North America’s traditional technology centres.“We have a great talent pool and we have really competitive operating costs,” Sagness said. “When I speak to businesses, Digital Nova Scotia’s members, those two things come up very, very frequently.”Digital Nova Scotia recently released an economic study on the tech industry in the province and found that one in 14 workers are employed in the digital sector.“Whether that’s the core digital sector or the extended digital sector, we have a lot of great talent,” Sagness said. “IT-digital is a people-centric business, and you just can’t do it without great talent.”Eight Canadian cities placed among CBRE’s Top 50 North American tech employment markets, including six in the top 15. Toronto ranked No. 3 overall, followed by Vancouver at No. 9, the Waterloo region at No. 10, Montreal at No. 11, Ottawa at No. 14 and Calgary at No. 15. Quebec City and Edmonton also made the Top 50.Only the top-ranked San Francisco Bay Area and Seattle finished ahead of Toronto in the top 50 among North American tech employment markets.Two other Canadian cities joined Halifax in the Next 25 group: London, Ont., (No. 5), with 19,300 tech workers and a 16.3 per cent three-year growth rate, and Winnipeg (No. 11), with 23,300 workers and a 14.8 per cent growth rate.CBRE said these emerging markets are evaluated using factors including tech talent supply, wages, talent concentration, recent employment growth and future outlook. Many have recorded double-digit growth in technology jobs since 2015.For Halifax to continue its trend upward, it will require attracting investment, addressing longstanding challenges such as housing and access to doctors and creating conditions for businesses to invest in innovation, Sagness said.“We need to do a few things,” he said. “One is the broader issues around sufficient housing, availability of doctors, the things that are already well-known challenges and are being worked on at the provincial and the municipal level.“But we also need to continue to develop talent, particularly in the mid-to-senior career levels, where we have a bit more weaknesses. It’s going to be really critical to maintaining growth. Dalhousie University in Halifax is at the forefront of the province’s AI research. The Atlantic AI Institute (A2I2) at Dal serves as the regional hub for artificial intelligence. Photo by Ryan Taplin“Driving innovation is capital intensive,” Sagness continued. “We need to have the environment and the policies that encourage intensive investment in innovation. In the latest federal budget, there are some new measures which provide incentives for businesses to invest capital in technology. Those kinds of policies, those kinds of actions at a government level are very, very helpful. They’ll help us realize the potential and drive more growth in the future.”CBRE defines tech talent broadly, covering more than 20 technology-oriented occupations across industries, from software developers and hardware engineers to computer and information systems managers.Its ranking considers 13 measures, including talent concentration, talent pipeline and research-and-development investment.Halifax is benefiting from a combination of factors: a growing workforce, universities and colleges producing technology graduates, competitive labour costs and an expanding ecosystem of technology companies and innovation.“If you look at our growth over the last three to five years, I think we should continue doing what we’re doing,” Sagness said. “Let’s put in place programs that keep the operating costs competitive and being able to attract talent, maybe from outside the province as well. Let’s provide the incentives for companies to continue to innovate and spend the capital that’s required to innovate. Let’s keep doing what we’re doing.”The next phase of Halifax’s technology growth could be driven by artificial intelligence. CBRE’s latest research shows that the number of U.S. and Canadian tech workers with AI skills increased by 45 per cent in a single year.Canada has emerged as a particularly important AI talent market, although the concentration remains strongest in its largest technology centres. About 60 per cent of Canada’s AI jobs are based in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver.At a smaller scale than Canada’s largest tech hubs, AI is reshaping industries across virtually every sector of Nova Scotia’s economy, from health care and clean technology to aerospace and financial services.“There’s zero question that the level of engagement that has happened in the last 12 months has been massive,” said Matt Cooper, CEO of the Atlantic Canada innovation hub Volta.“At Volta, our focus is on AI startups and AI adoption for small-medium enterprise. Both of those groups have really seen big spikes in engagement in the last 12 months mainly because most people know it needs to be used, but they’re struggling to know how to apply it.“There’s been a huge uptick in both people that are interested, but also heavily engaged and using this technology now. We’re running anywhere from a half-dozen to a dozen events a month, all centred around the use of AI, building with AI, adopting it (and) putting it into your business. The attendance and engagement, meaning the individuals within the community, asking if they can present, show people what they’re working on, is just nonstop, whereas a year ago it wouldn’t have been that case at all.”Dalhousie University in Halifax is at the forefront of the province’s AI research, applying machine learning to a wide range of fields, including ocean science and advanced health care.The Atlantic AI Institute (A2I2) at Dal serves as the regional hub for artificial intelligence and machine learning research, talent development and industry partnerships in Atlantic Canada. It is directed by Frank Rudzicz, a faculty member of the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence in Toronto. Atlantic Canada innovation hub Volta in Halifax. Photo by PostmediaSince last Christmas, Halifax has emerged as an epicentre for AI innovation, Cooper said.“I would say the last six months specifically has been a rocket ship,” he said.“There was downtime over the Christmas break and people just started playing with AI. When they got back from the break, they had a completely different perspective on what it could do. If you came to Volta 18 months ago, we would have said, ‘You need at least one software developer on your team because you need to be able to build a product for us to support you.’“Today, we have residents in our AI startup residency that have domain expertise but have never written a line of code, building entire applications and selling them and doing it in a fraction of the time and a fraction of the effort.“For those running their small-medium enterprises, they are not aware of how simple it is to apply AI to their business. It still requires effort, but what they’re capable of doing today is a fraction of what it was 12 months ago. That’s what’s been unlocked and we’re seeing immediate results. It’s a flywheel effect.“There’s not an industry that can go untouched. It’s this emerging new role both in startups and small business. It allows you to apply this technology and achieve what was not economically feasible before. The number of individuals I’ve seen build their own software that would have cost $100,000 a year ago are now applying it to their day-to-day.” Join the Conversation This website uses cookies to personalize your content (including ads), and allows us to analyze our traffic. Read more about cookies here. By continuing to use our site, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.