From pre-kindergarten enrollment to post-graduate degrees, the Tampa Bay region shows signs of building a stronger talent pipeline.
The region is a hot spot for business startups, ranking fifth out of 20 comparable metropolitan areas, and continues to attract young professionals, flipping the script on a long-standing “brain drain” dilemma and enjoying a period of “brain gain.”
As new residents keep coming and the population keeps rising, transportation, infrastructure, and the affordability of the cost of living continue to be community challenges.
Those are some takeaways from the 2025 State of the Region Regional Competitiveness Report, which compares the Tampa Bay area to 19 other U.S. metropolitan areas across more than 65 quality-of-life and economic indicators. The report, which the Tampa Bay Partnership puts out in collaboration with Community Foundation Tampa Bay and United Way Suncoast, shows year-to-year improvement in 43 of the 67 metrics analyzed and an improved ranking among peer metropolitan areas in 23.
“Obviously, it’s very encouraging to see that 64 percent of our indicators saw
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Tampa Bay Partnership President and CEO Bemetra Simmonsimprovement,” Tampa Bay Partnership President and CEO Bemetra Simmons says. “That basically says that Tampa Bay continued to be a great market with some real measurable progress. We continue to be number one in net migration. We continue to attract businesses and young professionals. Our growth remains robust, so we’re really excited about that. We’re also excited about some improvements we made in the talent pipeline, particularly in early education.”
Community Foundation Tampa Bay Senior Vice President, Community Impact Jesse Coraggio says the overall takeaway from the eighth annual State of the Region report is “we’ve made some gains.”
“The success ends up being very incremental over time,” he says. “There are a lot of areas we can work as a community to improve on, but it’s nice to see that needle move in a positive direction.”
Strides in early education
Simmons and Coraggio both highlight the strides in early education.
The percentage of three and four-year-olds enrolled in school rose from a little less than 48.5 percent to nearly 49.9 percent, improving Tampa Bay’s ranking from 17th to 10th. The kindergarten readiness rate improved from 50.28 percent to 52.11 percent. The percentage of third graders reading at grade level rose from 47.7 percent to nearly 53.6 percent.
“That’s very, very important,” Coraggio says. “We want to make sure we have kids enrolled in early childhood and VPK programs, ready for kindergarten, and reading on grade level by third grade.”
Farther along the educational pipeline, the numbers show more slight gains. The share of the population with bachelor’s degrees inched higher to 34.2 percent and the percentage with graduate/professional degrees rose to 12.93 percent. But, the share of the population with high school degrees, work training certificates, and AA degrees all declined.
Nine of 11 areas related to economic vitality improved, including average wage, median household income, median household net worth, and the business establishment rate. Tampa Bay’s tech and innovation economy showed significant gains with the share of the region’s jobs in advanced industries increasing from 15.44 percent to 21.73 percent year-to-year, improving the ranking among peer communities from 12th to fourth.
Affordability, transportation concerns
Despite the improvements, average wage and household income ranked 18th and 20th among peer communities. There were slight year-to-year gains in affordability, but, on average, 41.15 percent of household expenditures went to housing costs and a combined 55.35 percent went to housing and transportation costs. Food insecurity now affects 13 percent of the region’s population.
“We know over the last couple of years the housing costs have just really risen to very high numbers,” Coraggio says. “That’s hard on a family when over 50 percent
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Community Foundation Tampa Bay Senior Vice President, Community Impact Jesse Coraggio of your income is being spent on just transportation and housing. And that can relate to the food insecurity rate. It’s tough to afford things when you’re spending so much of your income on housing and transportation.”
Infrastructure and transportation were other challenging areas. Only 25 percent of the region’s pavement is in fair or good condition, compared to nearly 72 percent in 2022. More than one in 10 commuters faced commute times of an hour or more, which the report says could be due to people relocating within the region to areas farther from work with more affordable home prices. Safety remains a substantial concern. The region again has the highest rate of pedestrian and cyclist fatalities per 100,000 residents out of the 20 metropolitan areas included.
“There’s a lot of good happening in Tampa Bay,” Simmons says. “We’re thrilled that people continue to choose Tampa Bay as their new home and our region continues to be a magnet for talent, for business, for family. But with all of that growth, all of that excitement, we have to make sure that our infrastructure is sufficient and that our housing supply keeps pace with that growth.”
Coraggio says Community Foundation Tampa Bay uses the annual report as a “compass” showing the community issues to focus on. The report helps guide and measure the success of its LEAP College Access Network program and its Thrive by Five Tampa Bay kindergarten readiness program. The report also helps identify focus areas for Community Foundation Tampa Bay's annual competitive grant process, he says, and nonprofits applying for grant funding are encouraged to use data in the report to support their applications and show the community's need for their programs. This year, that grant program received a record 363 applications, Coraggio says.
For more information, go to State of the Region