Innovation industries in Knoxville are growing, but still outpaced by some peer cities
Why is this important? In Knoxville, jobs in innovative industries pay nearly double the average salary.
The waves of innovation ebb and flow, especially when you’re looking at it from a community-wide perspective. Back in 2023, the Knoxville Chamber began releasing an annual Innovation Report to keep a pulse on the progress of the Knoxville MSA. Today, the Chamber released the 2025 version, with some developments – both positive and negative.
For the sake of the study, the Chamber has identified 35 industry sectors as “innovation industries” and 58 occupation groups as “innovation occupations.” Technology, in and of itself, does not necessarily correlate to innovation within a community, but it has proven to be a strong indicator. Many technological roles have been grouped into the study.
Why is it important?
Innovative communities contribute to the economic well-being of their community members. A tangible example is salaries. The average Knoxvillian makes $63,359 per year. However, when you compare those salaries to the average pay in an innovative industry at $122,033, there’s no comparison. These numbers are coming from a sample size of 35,000 jobs in the Knoxville MSA.
The good news is that the number of innovative jobs is steadily increasing. The Knoxville MSA has experienced a growth rate of four percent in innovative careers. The bad news is that many of our peer cities are outpacing us in that growth, including Nashville, Asheville, Chattanooga, Lexington, and Durham.
It is notable that Knoxville is rising in the ranks as a hub for artificial intelligence jobs. Knoxville ranked 78 out of 344 MSAs for the most AI jobs created each month.
Another metric that the Chamber used to measure was the Milken Institute’s Best-Performing Cities report. Each year, the organization ranks the top 200 large communities by indicators such as job growth, wage growth, and broadband access. Knoxville ranked 24th in High-Tech Gross Domestic Product (GDP) from 2018-2023. However, there was a pretty significant drop off when looking at recent years. From 2022-2023, the Knoxville MSA ranked #104 out of 200.
You can read the full Innovation Report here.
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