Boston Ranked One of the World’s Best Tech Cities

Move over, Silicon Valley.

Student on MIT campus

A student on MIT’s campus. / Photo by Chelsea Kyle

The Silicon Valley area is familiar to a global audience as a mecca of tech innovation, with startups and established tech companies from Apple to Google, Uber to Airbnb. But it may not be the best place to live and work if you’re interested in tech, analysts at Expert Market say.

In fact, the company ranks Boston in the top five global cities for tech right behind San Francisco, when including rent, commutes, and salary as factors along with startup performance, funding, and talent. The ranking from Expert Market includes the following:

  1. Berlin
  2. Austin
  3. Toronto
  4. San Francisco
  5. Boston

Boston’s location makes the city a hub for pharmaceutical and research startups that don’t have to look too far for skilled graduates from Harvard and MIT.

These high-caliber grads are also productive. In addition to ranking high as a global city for tech, Expert Market also ranks Boston fourth worldwide for startup output.

The analysts ranked cities based on eight factors: time to start business, seed funding, startup output, average salary, cost of living, average rent, paid vacation, and average commute.

The slow-moving Green Line may make commuting in Boston frustrating, but Expert Market awarded Boston with the sixth best commute out of the ten tech cities considered. While in a Fast Company ranking, San Francisco topped the list of metro areas with the longest commutes, as some commuters spend as long as three hours getting to work.

“While the business opportunities and startup funding scores well [in San Francisco], a high cost of living, and costly rent makes it less appealing,” Expert Market researcher Bobbi Brant tells Fast Company. “You need a balance between potential corporate success and an enjoyable lifestyle.”