SelectUSA Software and Information Technology Industry

Industry Overview

One third of the $5 trillion global information technology (IT) market is in the United States, making it the largest tech market in the world. The industry accounts for $1.9 trillion of U.S. value-added GDP (more than 10 percent of the national economy) and 12.1 million jobs. According to CompTIA, there are more than 557,000 software and IT services companies in the United States (approximately 13,400 tech startups were established in 2019 alone). The tech industry includes software publishers, suppliers of custom computer programming services, computer systems design firms, and facilities management companies. The industry draws on a highly educated and skilled U.S. workforce, including 1.6 million software and web developers. The tech industry continues to grow, adding 307,000 new jobs for a total of 4.9 million postings for tech occupation jobs in 2019.

U.S. software firms operate a mature, harmonized market and have a reputation for producing reliable and effective solutions that accelerate quickly to the marketplace. International companies in the industry have shown a keen interest in the U.S. market because of its strong intellectual property rights laws and enforcement. Within the U.S. tech market, almost half of spending is in the tech services and software industries. U.S. companies lead the world’s packaged and custom software markets and are competitive in nearly all other market segments with a stable overseas market share.