As of 2025, the city has a talent pool of 4.25 million including 470,000 high-end talents, among which 83,600 highly-skilled talents were newly added in the year. The total number of Suzhou innovation and entrepreneurship leading talents reached 4,188 with an addition of 353 newly-recognized ones. Fifteen major innovation teams were newly recognized, bringing the total number of
such teams to 77.
With its youth talent policies being updated, Suzhou is also implementing the Million Suzhou Craftsmen Vocational Skills Enhancement Project in depth and steadily advancing the reform of industrial worker team. Meanwhile, the city has been titled as a provincial-level "Specialty Industry Talent Cluster Area".
At the end of 2025, the city's number of valid patents for invention exceeded 184,000. The number of valid invention patents owned per 10,000 people was 140.8. The number of high-value invention patents per 10,000 people reached 61.7. The number of PCT patent application reached 2,768 in 2025.
Suzhou has been titled as "the most attractive city in China for expat" for 14 consecutive years.
