UK Tech Hiring Rankings & Hiring Leaders Awards Explained
Table of contents
What are the UK Tech Hiring Rankings?
Each quarter, cord analyses 5,000+ UK tech companies and 16,000+ tech roles to highlight leading employers based on popularity with engineers, headcount growth, and candidate experience. Rankings only feature UK-based companies (or those with a significant UK engineering team) actively hiring software or infrastructure engineers.
The rankings include three categories:
- Most Popular Companies – Based on application volume across award season.
- Fastest Growing Companies – Based on headcount growth in preceding 12 months.
- Hiring Leaders Awards – Candidate experience awards exclusive to cord customers based on hiring behaviour.
When are the Rankings announced?
Rankings are updated quarterly:
- Winter – Announced March (Nov–Feb data)
- Spring – Announced June (Mar–May data)
- Summer – Announced September (Jun–Aug data)
- Autumn – Announced December (Sep–Nov data)
How will I know if I’m featured?
Winners receive an email from cord a week before the announcement. On release, you’ll get public award links, LinkedIn tags, and optional social media assets to share your achievement.
Most Popular & Fastest Growing Rankings
How are the Most Popular and Fastest Growing categories calculated?
cord indexes over 5,000 UK tech companies and their active job postings. Companies hiring into development or infrastructure at the reporting time are ranked as follows:
- Most Popular – Ranked by total applications received in the past three months.
- Fastest Growing – Ranked by headcount growth over the past twelve months (for reliability).
Subcategories highlight industries with the most popularity and growth. This includes: FinTech, AI, Data & Analytics, E-commerce & D2C, InsurTech, Security, HealthTech, Sustainability, Blockchain, and Consultancy.
Companies can also be filtered by size: Small (1-50 employees), Mid-sized (51-500 employees) & Large (501+ employees)
This allows candidates to refine searches, e.g., “Fastest-growing FinTech startups (1-50 employees).”
Who qualified for the Most Popular & Fastest Growing Rankings?
- Companies must be hiring for a developer or infrastructure position at the closing date of the award period
- Companies must be based in the UK (or have a significant engineering team in the UK)
- Reliable headcount data must be available for the Fastest Growing Ranking
Hiring Leaders Awards Rankings
How are the Hiring Leaders Awards categories calculated?
Exclusive to cord customers, these awards recognise the top 20 companies in Small (1-50), Mid (51-500) and Large (501+) size brackets based on:
- Most Responsive – Highest percentage of applications responded to within 14 days.
- Fastest to Respond – Shortest average response time to applications.
- Gender Diversity Sourcing – Highest percentage of female candidates sourced above the industry average.
Who qualifies for the Hiring Leaders Awards?
- Companies must have an active cord subscription at the closing date (e.g., April subscribers qualify for Spring Awards in May).
- A minimum of 10 relevant interactions is required (e.g., at least 10 applications for the “Fastest to Respond” award).
The rankings showcase the best tech employers and provide valuable insights for jobseekers in tech