The Surprising Cities Where Millennials Want to Work

In a recent study, LinkedIn looked at job search behaviors of millennials to find out which cities these Gen Y’ers may flock to next. The results were not quite what the researchers expected.

Forget about San Francisco or New York, millennials would rather live in mid-sized cities, according to LinkedIn's data. Detroit, Austin, Charlotte and Raleigh-Durham top the list of unexpected cities with the highest year-over-year growth in job searches amongst millennials. That doesn’t mean millennials are necessarily moving to these cities, though. Over the past year, millennials have populated cities in the Pacific Northwest such as Seattle, Portland and Denver -- which likely contribute to a spike in housing prices in these areas too.

Related: The 15 Best U.S. Cities for Entrepreneurs to Live and Launch

Now that we know which cities millennials are looking for jobs in -- which industries are they looking to work in? Transportation (aero and auto), architecture and engineering, technology and healthcare are amongst the fastest growing industries of interest amongst Gen Y’ers, the data reveals.

An even deeper look at these job search trends also show that millennials are primarily looking for roles as software developers, sales and marketing professionals and manufacturing/mechanical engineers. With the rise of opportunities in the technology space, it’s no surprise that “software developer” is the most highly sought after job among millennials on LinkedIn today -- 21 percent more so than the general population.