The strongest IT hiring activity this quarter is to take place in the Mountain States — Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming — according to a third-quarter forecast from Robert Half Technology.

Nineteen percent of executives in this region expect to add IT staff, and none expect personnel cutbacks. That net regional hiring increase is 9% above the national average, Robert Half reports. The results are based on a poll of more than 1,400 CIOs from a stratified, random sample of U.S. companies with at least 100 employees.

Healthcare organizations and professional and financial services firms in the Mountain States are expanding and reporting demand for IT personnel, according to the forecast. In particular, CIOs are seeking application developers skilled in .Net and Java 2 Platform Enterprise Edition to assist in enhancing customer-facing applications.

At least half of these states could be considered rural, but experts say real estate is breaking down IT boundaries.

“If you think about what’s going on in Arizona, Nevada, Colorado . . . it’s very, very real-estate driven,” says Brian Gabrielson, national practice director at Robert Half. “Even Utah is picking up in that way, and Idaho seems to be coming on strong as the next hotbed for that.”

Real estate and transportation are driving IT hiring in Montana and Wyoming, Gabrielson says.

Notable hiring gains also are expected in what Robert Half terms the West south central states: Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas. There, 21% of CIOs plan to expand their IT departments, and 3% anticipate personnel reductions, for a net 18% hiring increase.

That’s not to say these regions are paying the most. Recent research from jobs site Dice shows the top five highest-paying metropolitan areas for technology professionals are Silicon Valley, with an average salary of $85,600; Boston, $78,700; New York, $76,700; Baltimore/Washington, D.C., $76,100; and Atlanta, $75,000.

Dice also found the technology job market continues to thrive, with job postings rising 29% over the past year to 89,476 in July. The New York/New Jersey metropolitan area continues to distance itself from other top technology metropolitan areas, with 11,528 postings in July, a 24.5% increase since the beginning of the year. Washington, D.C., New York/New Jersey’s closest competitor, conversely, has seen a 5% decline since the beginning of the year, to 8,721 postings in July.