Silicon Valley emerged as the area with the highest average salary in IT at $99,028 per year. 29% of the private workforce in the region was employed in the tech industry in 2009, the highest in the nation.

Pasadena, CA -- (SBWire) -- 03/28/2011 -- Silicon Valley was the second most dynamic area in California in terms of jobs creation in 2010. The San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara area created 14,600 jobs in 2010.

The data was taken from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The region which created the highest number of jobs was the San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos region in southern California which created 16,500 jobs.

Only 19 U.S. metros have been able to create over 10,000 jobs since January 2010. The reason that the San Jose metro area has done so well compared other areas in California is mostly because of its tech industry.

Silicon Valley emerged as the area with the highest average salary in IT at $99,028 per year. 29% of the private workforce in the region was employed in the tech industry in 2009, the highest in the nation. The high earners were most often found working in big companies or having highly specialized skills. The high earners by skills were the Oracle database experts and Java programmers, earning on average over $90,000.

The people who are most in demand are software engineers, graphic designers, and project managers.

CEO A. Harrison Barnes of InformationTechnologyCrossing says that for computer professionals, this was the best time since the dotcom boom ended. “IT workers need to have the latest in demand skills, that’s the key to getting these new jobs.” Barnes’ firm has been able to compile a list of over 17,000 IT jobs in the area.