As “Gen Z” (those born from 1997 – 2012) is set to overtake the Baby Boomers as the second largest generation in today’s workforce, the demand for careers in tech will continue to rise.

Once they’ve graduated, where should they go?

That’s the question BizInsure wanted to answer when they created the “Gen Z IRL Tech Index” as a way to determine where new grads can enter the tech industry across all 50 states.

Unsurprisingly, the index scores show Huntsville as the #1 city in the state for new grads looking to start their career in tech, ranking it #6 of all cities in the index, alongside other big tech hubs like Austin and Seattle.

Even with score that placed it within the 10, Huntsville’s overall index score of 5.56 (scored out of 10) is pretty far off from the 10.00 that San Jose pulled in as the #1 ranked city in this index.

Which factors scored in Huntsville’s favor and which ones dragged their score down?

When analyzing the complete rankings and how they were determined, it’s apparent that Huntsville’s affordability boosted its overall score.

Huntsville is the most affordable of the 10 highest-scoring cities in every state, with median rents only taking up 11% of a median tech salary.

Also, $106,410 is the median salary for tech jobs in the city which made it part of the 18 of the total 51 cities (one for every state + DC) to offer salaries higher than $100K.

Another factor in Huntsville’s favor is its 77 tech jobs per 1K total jobs, which is a higher concentration than other high scoring metros such as Austin (66/1K.)

While the “per capita” stats scored in Huntsville’s favor, the volume based metrics were not as kind to the Rocket City. Huntsville underperformed with only eight “Growing Tech Companies” while the five cities ranked above it all had at least 76. And, for the “Major Tech HQs” metric, Huntsville did not have any companies that qualified. The top two scorers, San Jose and New York City, had 17 and 44 respectively.

Overall, the Gen Z Tech Index reaffirms what many have already known.

Huntsville’s status as a tech town has risen in the past few years, and CBRE featured the city as a “Next 25” tech town just last year. Home to the Redstone Arsenal military base, a NASA flight center, Blue Origin, and new manufacturing plants for Toyota and Mazda, the tech opportunities are plentiful.

Beyond that, tech salaries here are some of the highest in the nation, while the cost of living has remained remarkably low, making it a great place for budget-conscious new grads to get a head start on their tech career.