Tech companies in Raleigh: Wake County's 1,650 tech sites, the big employers and the RTP question

This page is for people looking for Raleigh tech companies: job seekers and relocating engineers, companies choosing a software or IT partner, and B2B sellers whose customers are tech firms. It covers the federal count, the large employers Wake County publishes, why Research Triangle Park figures differ, and the North Carolina rules and registries worth knowing.

Raleigh tech companies by the numbers

County Business Patterns (CBP), the Census Bureau's annual count of businesses with employees, puts 1,650 tech establishments in the Raleigh-Cary, NC Metro Area (CBSA 39580) for 2023. Tech means four NAICS industry groups: software publishers (5112), computer systems design and related services (5415), data processing, hosting and related services (518) and other information services (5191).

The payroll total includes the payroll of other information services (5191), which the Census Bureau flagged as high-noise: the noise it adds to protect confidentiality changed that figure by 5% or more. The employee totals carry lower noise flags, so treat the payroll and average pay as approximate.

Employee counts marked not reported carry the Census Bureau's high-noise flag: to protect confidentiality it changed them by 5% or more, so they're left out here.

Five establishments aren't assigned to a county in the published file.

The Research Triangle Park question

The metro is Wake, Johnston and Franklin counties. Research Triangle Park's own address is in Durham, and businesses in its Durham County section count in a different metro, Durham-Chapel Hill, which had 510 tech establishments and 14,002 tech employees in 2023. Wake County Economic Development lists "Wake County and the Research Triangle Park" together in its employer directory, and the park says it hosts more than 385 companies, 31 of them in information technology. If someone quotes a "Triangle" tech figure, ask whether it includes Durham and Orange counties.

The largest tech employers

Wake County Economic Development's list of employers with 2,000 or more people in Wake County and RTP (no year given) includes these technology companies:

The same list is led by Duke University and Duke Health (43,108), the State of North Carolina and the Wake County school system, with Fidelity Investments, Blue Cross and Blue Shield North Carolina and Wells Fargo among the private employers. Those are also the large local buyers of IT services.

Among SEC-registered tech companies, only Bandwidth has its principal executive office in the metro, at 2230 Bandmate Way, Raleigh. Its 10-K reports revenue of $753.8 million for 2025. None of the large employers above files its own 10-K from a Raleigh-area headquarters.

What kind of tech companies

The 169 software publisher sites average about 76 employees and hold 36% of the metro's tech jobs, so a handful of product companies dominate employment. Systems design firms are the most numerous but average under seven employees each: consultants and small integrators.

Size

The Census Bureau withholds every size class from 20 employees up for Raleigh-Cary to protect confidentiality, so the last row is the total less the published cells: 1,454 establishments have 1 to 19 employees and 196 have 20 or more.

North Carolina rules worth knowing

• Digital forensics needs a license. Since 1 October 2022, North Carolina's Private Protective Services Board has required a license for persons or firms conducting digital forensics examination for a fee. If you hire a firm for incident response that includes forensic work, ask for it.
• Low-voltage work is licensed. The State Board of Examiners of Electrical Contractors issues a Fire Alarm/Low-Voltage license (SP-FA/LV). Ask for it if your IT provider will install cabling or alarm systems.
• Check the entity. The Secretary of State's business registration division lets you search companies by name, ID, officials or registered agent, and charges $15 for a Certificate of Existence.

Finding Raleigh tech companies by name

Prospecting Raleigh tech companies

The 1,454 establishments under 20 employees are owner-run. The 196 with 20 or more include the big software employers above, where procurement and security review apply, and a smaller group of growing mid-sized firms that are the best targets for most sellers. Triggers worth watching: a new state contract, a relocation or expansion announced through Wake County Economic Development, and hiring.

Worked example: an incident response firm

Illustrative example. The company, people and fees are fictional, to show the method.

Oak City Response (oakcityresponse.example) sells incident response retainers, with state-licensed digital forensics examiners, to software and IT services companies whose customers require one.

• Raleigh-Cary establishments with 20 or more employees: 196.
• Wake County has 96% of establishments: about 188.
• Oak City drops the six large employers above, which run their own security teams, and assumes half the rest hold client data under contracts that require a response plan: about 90 accounts.
• A retainer renews each year, so 12 clients in year one builds a recurring base.

Working out which firms hold client data takes reading contracts pages and security pages one by one. Bebop takes "Wake County software and IT services companies with 20 to 500 employees that host customer data" and returns matching firms with a playbook for each.

Subject: Who [Company] calls first

Hi [first name],

When a customer's security questionnaire asks for your incident response retainer, it's easier to answer with a name and a phone number than a plan to find one.

We hold retainers for Triangle software companies your size, with licensed forensic examiners on call and a one-hour response commitment. Would a sample retainer agreement help your next questionnaire?

[Your name], Oak City Response

What the count covers

CBP counts establishments, single locations with at least one paid employee, for the week of March 12, 2023. A company with offices in Raleigh and Cary counts twice, owner-only firms aren't counted, and tech teams inside banks, insurers and universities count under their employers' industries.

Next step: compare North Carolina's largest metro in tech companies in Charlotte.