Tampa Bay

Emerging as a world destination, the Tampa-St. Petersburg metro region’s rich mix of industry and environmental assets, world-class academic and life science resources and a steady pipeline of foreign and domestic investment capital, has elevated the region to the top ranks of U.S. leaders in economic growth, says the famed non-profit Brookings Institution.

 

The Tampa Bay region is a textbook example of a balanced economic landscape that blends robust industry clusters, a vibrant arts and culture scene, higher education, recreation and tourism that together create an enviable coastal lifestyle.

The City of Tampa is the epicenter of a Gulf Coast region that includes Citrus, Hernando, Hillsborough, Manatee, Pasco, Pinellas, Polk and Sarasota counties whose combined population is estimated by the U.S. Census Bureau to reach 5.3 million in 2026.

Moreover, the Tampa-St. Petersburg metro is emerging as an international destination, showing up on recent published lists of the world’s great cities, joining the ranks of Barcelona, Vienna and Naples, Italy.

A major contributor to Tampa’s international appeal is its airport that welcomed more than 30 million passengers in 2024. A large number of those passengers arrived on non-stop flights from Europe, the Caribbean and Central America, attracted by the region’s beaches, luxury hotels, restaurants, professional sports and entertainment offerings.

Growth

This rich mix of industry and environmental assets, world-class academic and life science resources and a steady pipeline of foreign and domestic investment capital, has elevated the Tampa-St. Petersburg metro area and the region to the top ranks of the nation’s leaders in economic growth.

Highlights of this growth are:

Tampa Bay is one of the top 15 U.S. metro areas with growth in tech jobs, according to a recent study by the famed Brookings Institution, a think tank that conducts research on economic development.

The Brookings ranking of the Tampa-St. Petersburg metro cited its 30 percent job growth over the past five years in its tech industry that employs over 50,000 workers and is projected to add another 3,700 jobs by 2027.

The steady growth in tech jobs is fueled by a surge in cybersecurity by such companies as Paragon Cyber Solutions and ReliaQuest. What’s more, the University of South Florida in Tampa is among the first higher education institutions in the nation to stand up a college dedicated solely to AI and cybersecurity.

Manufacturing is another standout industry in the eight-county Tampa Bay region which employs a combined 68,000 workers and accounts for 18 percent of all manufacturing employment in the state.

While tech and manufacturing jobs continue to show healthy growth patterns across the board, the financial services industry is in a league of its own.

The broader Tampa-St. Petersburg metropolitan area’s financial institutions, which include such heavyweights as Citi, JPMorgan Chase and USAA, employ a staggering 344,000 people, according to Francesca Gonzalez-Roel, economic development manager for the Tampa Bay Economic Development Council.

Over the past five years, employment in the financial and professional services industry grew by 16.5 percent and is the 8th leading metro location in the U.S. in terms of “economic hotspots.”

Emerging Industries

Another rapidly emerging regional industry is supply chain logistics.

Standout companies like Ashley Furniture run their e-commerce division out of the Tampa region and ship large volumes of furniture in and out of the Port of Tampa.

Another example of a sophisticated supply chain operation is Mosaic, a large producer and international distributor of phosphate and potash that also ships its products out of the Port of Tampa, one of the largest deepwater ports and cruise ship embarkation facilities along the entire Gulf of Mexico.

Life Sciences / Health care

Another strong industry sector in the eight-county Tampa Bay region is life sciences.

In recent years major pharmaceutical corporations, such as Bristol-Myers Squibb and Johnson & Johnson, have chosen Tampa as the site for some of their large-scale North American operations.

Those corporations have joined an impressive list of life sciences companies in the region that include Quest Diagnostics, Covidien, HealthPlan Services, Synergy Health, Smart Science Labs, Biologics Development Services, Bausch & Lomb Surgical and Baxter Health care to name just a few.

Major regional health care providers include Tampa General Hospital, one of the largest in Florida and an affiliate with the University of South Florida’s Morsani College of Medicine.

In Pinellas County, BayCare Health System has a big footprint and is responsible for more than 28,000 jobs locally, either directly or through its service providers. It operates six of the county’s 15 hospitals and multiple urgent care centers, outpatient clinics and primary care and specialty clinics, and continues to grow.

The Tampa Bay region also is gaining a national reputation as a growing hub for research and development.

USF Health, University of Tampa College for Natural & Health Sciences, USF St. Petersburg College of Marine Science, Draper Labs, Eckerd College, St. Petersburg College, SRI St. Petersburg, Bayboro Harbor Research District, and Hillsborough Community College Health Sciences and Nursing programs are all important contributors to the region’s broad efforts to innovate, research and train the next generation of scientists, doctors and health care technicians.

While the Tampa-St. Petersburg metro area, which includes Hillsborough and Pinellas counties, gets the lion’s share of attention, its neighboring counties of Citrus, Hernando, Manatee, Pasco, Polk and Sarasota are hard at work growing their own economies and achieving significant successes.

New Cancer Treatment Center

One of the largest and most important success stories within the broader Tampa Bay region is the ongoing development of a 775-acre site in Pasco County by the Tampa-based Moffitt Cancer Center.

Pasco County Economic Development Council CEO Bill Cronin says the site, a former ranch, will enable the Moffitt Cancer Center to create a health care treatment and research campus that over the long term can accommodate some 14,000 health care and other workers.

The campus has been named “Speros FL,” a name derived from the Latin verb “Sperare” meaning “to hope” or “look forward to.”

“Our vision is to be the global epicenter for personalized oncology care and leading research that will revolutionize the way we prevent, find and treat cancer,” says Dr. Patrick Hwu, Moffitt president and CEO. “You cannot separate cancer research and treatment from hope, which is the root of the name Speros FL, and the driving force behind all that we do at Moffitt Cancer Center.”

Cronin says the initial idea behind the huge health care project, years in the making, “was to create a space big enough to have a hospital and bring in collaborative life science companies that can conduct real-time clinical trials and research on the spot.”

Site plans also include a conference center and other facilities that will have a research and development aspect.

“We’re calling this area of Pasco County the ‘Life Sciences Corridor’ because we've already seen a lot of life sciences business popping up in the area that are just a 20-minute drive from the Tampa International Airport,” says Cronin.

Incentives / Competition

Competition for new industry and good jobs from Southeastern states, including Georgia, North Carolina and Texas is intense and will stay that way indefinitely.

Counties, especially those rural areas with large swaths of open and relatively inexpensive land, have gotten the message and are incorporating attractive tax and cash incentives into their game plans.

An excellent example of a proactive incentives plan is Manatee County’s economic development program. County commissioners over the past few years have approved nearly $16.5 million in incentives to create or retain almost 7,000 high-paying jobs in the county.

Companies that have received incentives from Manatee County are projected to invest more than $944 million in capital improvements through 2027, according to the Manatee County EDC.

Other counties, such as Sarasota, are energizing their economies by offering incentives and doing away with taxes that discourage capital investment.

Earlier this year the Sarasota County Commission repealed the Local Business Tax, a move that garnered overwhelming support from the local business community and marked a significant financial shift for its Economic Development Corporation, says Erin Silk, president and CEO of the county’s EDC.

“The repeal of the Local Business Tax brought forth a new chapter for our organization and that was the introduction of a 50 percent county match for private business investment,” says Silk. “This new funding model fundamentally alters the foundation of our EDC, positioning us as a predominantly private business-funded organization.”

Site Development

Elsewhere, Polk County’s Central Florida Innovation District, that lies midway between Tampa and Orlando, is paying significant economic dividends.

In an area that encompasses roughly 3,000 acres, the district is building upon the technology being developed at the Florida Department of Transportation’s 475-acre SunTrax testing facility in collaboration with Florida Polytechnic University in Lakeland.

Of Florida Economic Development Council’s eight regions, Tampa Bay prides itself as a well-rounded region, combining urban amenities with excellent air, sea and land transportation access along with attractive investment opportunities in rural areas with abundant land and “shovel ready” sites for development.

“What we offer in the Tampa Bay region is a coastal lifestyle and desirability where employers want to relocate to and where their employees want to live, work and play,” says Karisa Rojas-Norton, media manager for Pinellas County Economic Development.