Methodology
How the Women in Tech Index is calculated
The index ranks 253 technology employers for 2026. This page states exactly how, what the data covers, and what it cannot tell you.
The two pillars
Every company’s composite score is a weighted blend of two independent pillars. A company is scored on whichever pillars it has data for, and the weights are renormalised across those — so missing data lowers confidence, not rank.
Hiring Commitment — 45%
Measures whether a company has actually turned up to recruit women in tech, drawn from 31,517 employer registrations across WomenHack events between 2014 and 2026. Three components:
- Breadth — how many distinct WomenHack events the company attended, log-scaled so the 40th event matters less than the 4th.
- Tenure — the span of years between a company’s first and most recent appearance, capped at eight years.
- Recency — how recently they last attended, decaying to zero over six years. A company that stopped showing up in 2019 does not rank as a 2026 employer.
Employee Sentiment — 55%
The WomenHack Diversity Score — the same number shown on a company’s profile and on its badge, not a separate calculation. It averages verified anonymous employee reviews across four categories: Equal Pay, Career Advancement, Supportive Culture and Family Friendly, each rated one to five stars.
A confidence adjustment pulls companies with very few reviews toward a neutral baseline, so a single five-star review cannot outrank a company with forty consistent ones.
Who is eligible
A company must clear three gates to appear at all:
| Gate | Rule | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Real record | At least two WomenHack events attended | Review volume alone can be manufactured; a repeated event record cannot |
| Still active | Attended within the last six years | Keeps defunct and long-departed employers off a current-year list |
| One per company | Duplicate profiles merged by domain | Prevents the same employer appearing twice at different ranks |
What the score deliberately ignores
Money. Our event records include what each company paid to attend WomenHack events. That figure is excluded from every pillar and every gate. A company that has spent more with us does not rank higher, and there is no placement for sale on this index at any price.
Self-reported claims. Nothing on this page comes from a company’s own marketing, careers site, or diversity report. Every input is either an event record we hold or a review left by an employee.
Company size and fame. A large employer has no structural advantage. Breadth is log-scaled and every component is capped, so a mid-size company that shows up consistently can and does outrank a household name that attended twice.
What this data cannot tell you
Stating the limits is part of the method:
- Coverage is not universal. The index only sees companies that have recruited through WomenHack. An excellent employer that has never attended an event simply is not measured — absence from this list is not a negative judgement.
- Review coverage is uneven. 76 of the 253 ranked companies carry employee reviews; 177 are ranked on hiring commitment alone. Each company’s entry shows which basis applies, and we do not present one as the other.
- Recruiting is not culture. Consistently hiring women in tech is evidence of real investment, but it is not the same as being a good place to work once hired. That is exactly why sentiment carries the heavier weight wherever we have it.
- This is an inclusion list. There is no published bottom and no company is shown a low score. Companies that do not clear the bar are absent, not ranked poorly.
How the list is published
Companies are ranked by composite score and grouped into three bands — Exemplary (70 and above), Strong (50–69) and Established (below 50 but above the eligibility bar). We publish the band, not a bare number, because a precise-looking figure implies a precision the underlying evidence does not always support.
The published set is the top 250 companies, including any tied at the cut line — breaking a genuine tie arbitrarily would be less honest than publishing both.
How a company gets considered
Participation is what qualifies a company: recruit at WomenHack events and the record builds automatically, at no cost. WomenHack membership puts a company forward for consideration on the annual top lists and unlocks a managed profile, employer spotlights and the verified badge — but membership never changes a company’s score or its position. Eligibility for consideration and the ranking itself are separate on purpose.
Corrections
If your company’s record looks wrong — events missing, a duplicate profile, an outdated domain — tell us and we will check it against the source records. We correct data errors. We do not adjust scores on request.
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