Where The Talented Employees Are -- And Aren't

Finding the best employees, from top managers and effective salespeople to engineers with deep technical expertise, is often the biggest challenge faced by growing solution providers.

As part of the 2015 Best States to Grow a Solution Provider Business project, we've ranked the states according to the overall experience and education levels of their available workforce. That ranking includes the educational level attained by a state's workforce, the rate of migration (from within the U.S.) and immigration (from outside the U.S.) of knowledge workers into a state, and the managerial, professional and technical jobs as a share of a state's total private-sector workforce. A report from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation was the foundation for much of the analysis.

The following are the 10 states with the highest rankings for educated and experienced workers, listed from No. 10 to No. 1. The states with the lowest rankings are then listed from No. 41 to No. 50.