The U.S. tech industry has steadily grown year-over-year and is projected to see another 178,000 tech jobs enter the market in 2022. But while the industry’s median income continues to skyrocket above the national median income, women only make up 26.1% of all tech workers and earn just 84% of what men do. Depending on the city, however, some women fare better than others and represent a larger portion of the tech workforce. Keeping this in mind, SmartAsset analyzed data to identify and rank the best cities for women in tech.
To do this, we compared 59 U.S. cities for which full data was available and ranked them according to the following four metrics: gender pay gap in the tech industry, income for women in tech after deducting housing costs, women as a percentage of tech workers and three-year growth in tech employment. For details on our data sources and how we put all the information together to create our final rankings, read the Data and Methodology section below.
Key Findings
To do this, we compared 59 U.S. cities for which full data was available and ranked them according to the following four metrics: gender pay gap in the tech industry, income for women in tech after deducting housing costs, women as a percentage of tech workers and three-year growth in tech employment. For details on our data sources and how we put all the information together to create our final rankings, read the Data and Methodology section below.
Key Findings
- Representation of women in the tech workforce has not improved since last year. Nationally, women have made up about one in four tech workers over the past several years. In this year’s study, Detroit, Michigan has the highest percentage of women tech workers (41.7%) and Irvine, California has the lowest percentage (18.9%).
- Surprisingly, no California cities made the top 10. Overall, California cities fall behind for tech employment growth over the last three years and the gender pay gap. The highest ranked California city is Sacramento which ties for No. 11 with Nashville, Tennessee.
- The tech industry is booming in Utah’s Salt Lake City, though the city ranks third-worst for women in the field. Census Bureau data shows that from 2017 to 2020, the tech industry in Salt Lake City grew by 62%, the most of any city in our study. However, women make up less than 20% of the workforce and make only 74 cents on the dollar relative to men.
