Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher
% of adults 25+ · Metro · 2025
Denver: #5 of 13 · higher is betterA company choosing where to put a team cares about who it can hire, how easily people fly in and out, what it costs, and whether recruits will want to move. We compared Denver with 12 metros that compete for the same headquarters on all four.
50.6% of adults hold a bachelor's degree, 5th of 13. Labor force participation is 3rd of 13, and the Front Range has a deep aerospace bench.
Metro Denver is home to 7 Fortune 500 headquarters: Arrow Electronics, Newmont, EchoStar, DaVita, Ball, VF and Ovintiv. That's more than Nashville, San Diego, Austin, Raleigh, Portland and Salt Lake City.
Mountain Time overlaps the business day on both coasts, and DEN flies nonstop to 219 airports at least weekly, more than any other airport in this comparison.
Colorado's flat 4.4% income tax and Denver's low property tax rate keep the tax side simple. Office space is a buyer's market.
Downtown office vacancy reached 37.1% in Q3 2026 (27.1% across the metro, the figure in the chart below). For a company moving in or expanding, that means choice and leverage on lease terms.
Recruits don't move for a job alone. The outdoors, sunshine and health pages below have the numbers for that conversation.
Every metro here has a standout stat. Denver's advantage is that it rarely trails: it finishes in the top nine of 13 on 38 of 42 measures (90%), more than any other metro, and near the bottom on just 4.
This page is one stat in that record. The full scorecard has all 42.
Share of all 42 scored measures in each band, among the 13 metros. The number is the top-nine share. See every metro →