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British Columbia’s biggest software companies are growing faster than they did five years ago, according to data collected on Business in Vancouver’s list of B.C.’s biggest software companies.

In 2020, the median one-year growth rate for those companies increased to 5%, nearly five times the 1.2% median one-year growth rate they posted in 2016. However, the average one-year growth of 5.5% in 2020 was only fractionally higher than that of 2016. This suggests that in 2020 the growth momentum of smaller software companies lower on the list has outpaced that of larger companies higher on the list when compared with their 2016 counterparts.

It also suggests that, unlike in 2016, software companies on the list in 2020 are in general growing at roughly the same rate, regardless of their size.

The lacklustre performance of the larger players is evidenced by the mixed performance of the list’s top five software companies. Over the past five years, employment at two of the top five has decreased while it increased at the other three. Traction on Demand (No. 3) has grown the most: 197.9% to 560 B.C. employees in 2020, up from 188 in 2016. However, MDA (No. 2) had the largest decline in staff in the top five, falling 10.3% to 602 employees in 2020 from 671 in 2016.

This broad-brush growth has unsurprisingly resulted in more employees across the spectrum of companies on the list.

The No. 1-ranked company on the list, SAP Canada Inc., employed 1,381 people in 2020 versus 1,100 people in 2016. Clevest, the company holding the No. 20 spot on the list, had 132 employees in 2020 versus 100 in 2016.

Talent is a tech and software company’s most important asset. Not only are British Columbian software companies hiring more people, but, according to a recent CBRE Group report, those employees are increasingly more talented.

In 2017, Vancouver ranked 16th on CBRE’s tech talent scoring ranking. By 2019, it had surpassed Chicago, Baltimore and Orange County to claim 12th place. According to the report, this jump was in part the result of Metro Vancouver’s strong tech-centric universities.

From 2012 to 2018, Vancouver was one of North America’s most attractive destinations for tech talent with a “brain gain” of 11,160, meaning that the city had 11,160 more tech jobs than people who earned tech degrees.

The only hotter destinations were Toronto, San Francisco, Seattle and Charlotte. Vancouver also beats out nearly every other city measured in terms of having the highest-quality talent for the lowest cost, according to the report. •