One Alabama city beat out stiff competition for the title of fastest-growing tech town in 2017.

ZipRecruiter and Payscale have named Huntsville the top tech city in the U.S. The study, which ranks cities by year-over-year tech job growth, features a few other surprises, including seven cities in the Midwest and three Ohio towns.

Huntsville's year-over-year tech job growth was 309 percent, according to the ranking. The top tech careers in Huntsville are software and systems engineers, systems and information technology specialists, and help desk support.

The report found early career median pay starts at $59,500, while mid-career median pay jumps to $96,400. ZipRecruiter, a job search website, and Payscale, an online salary, benefits and compensation information company, said median Huntsville rent is $950, while the median home price is about $152,000.

ZipRecruiter's top 10 tech jobs and cities are as below:

Huntsville Thousand Oaks, Calif. Phoenix Albany, N.Y. Kansas City Orlando Salt Lake City Nashville Jacksonville, Fla. Baltimore

Cincinnati, Cleveland, Indianapolis, Columbus, Denver, Detroit, Tampa, Providence, Seattle and Chicago rounded out the list.

To find the fastest-growing U.S. tech job markets, Payscale queried ZipRecruiter's database of more than 8 million active jobs for the following information:

Year-over-year growth in tech jobs by Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA)*

The top jobs in tech by MSA

Payscale then ranked the top MSAs by the tech job growth rate from 2016-17, and included the following:

The top 5 tech jobs in each MSA.

The median salaries for early and mid-career tech workers in each MSA (via PayScale)

Median rents and home sales prices for each MSA (via Trulia).

Huntsville also recently landed at No. 7 on SmartAsset.com's top metro areas for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) professions. It was the only Alabama city -- and the only from the deep South -- to make the list.