Austin downtown skyline, bridge, lake, and fall treesAustin ends up on a lot of top 10 lists and now it’s ranked No. 9 on its ability to attract and grow tech talent, according to a new CBRE Research report “Scoring Tech Talent.”

The ability to retain and grow tech talent and that clustering effect leads to big demand for office space in the U.S., according to CBRE, the world’s largest commercial real estate firm.

Silicon Valley ranked first on the list, followed by San Francisco, San Francisco Peninsula, New York, Seattle, Boston and Baltimore.

“Austin’s talent growth rate from 2010 to 2013 was 26.5 percent, making it one of the ten strongest large markets for tech talent growth,” according to the report.

Tech talent makes up less than four percent of the total U.S. workforce, but it accounted for nearly 14 percent of all office leasing activity in the U.S. in 2013 and 19 percent in 2014, according to the CBRE Report.

“For the past two years, the high-tech industry has not only spurred the economy as a whole, but it has been the top driver of commercial office activity, influencing rents and vacancy in major markets across the U.S., including Austin,” Erin Morales, senior vice president who leads CBRE’s Tech and Media Practice group in Austin, said in a news release. “Downtown Austin has experienced an incredible transformation of culture in the last decade, which is in large part the result of tech companies’ preference to grow their workforces in an amenity-rich environment with access to livable space. One can’t survive well without the other, but the trilogy of housing, amenity and tech growth have fueled the economy in Austin, and the continued development of apartments, hotels and office buildings suggests this growth is sustainable.”

The top 10 large markets on the Tech Talent Score Card (identified as markets with a talent pool above 50,000 tech professionals) are:

1. Silicon Valley, CA

2. Washington, D.C.

3. San Francisco, CA

4. San Francisco Peninsula, CA

5. New York, NY

6. Seattle, WA

7. Boston, MA

8. Baltimore, MD

9. Austin, TX

10. Atlanta, GA