The top 10 best cities to pursue a tech career

The trend of working from home shows no signs of waning in the tech industry, but the physical office still holds a vital place in business. 

Codeclan, an award-winning and industry-led digital skills academy from Scotland, has created an index that reveals the best cities in the world to pursue a career in tech. 

Gathering data from the the top 100 cities listed in Mercer's Quality of Living ranking, Codeclan used factors such as number of tech companies, average rent per month, average salary, average broadband speed and how many jobs were available in the tech field. Against each factor, a weighting was given to generate an overall score.

Read on to see who made the top 10 and see who took the crown as the best city in the world for a career in tech.

10. Boston

Companies: Hubspot, Skillsoft, IBM, Klaviyo, Tripadvisor, Akamai, Formlabs, Capgemini,, VMware, Wayfair, NVIDIA, Salesforce, Adobe, Red Hat, Dell, Mathworks, AMD, NetApp, HPE

Population: 689,326 (2020)

9. Minneapolis

Companies: TCS, Infosys, Amazon, Cognizant, Wipro, IBM, Thomson Reuters, Oracle, Honeywell, Apple, Capgemini, HCL, Microsoft, Dell, SAP, Seagate, Mastech Digital, Lumen, ADP

Population: 424,536 (2020)

8. Miami

Companies: United Data Technologies, Yext, Apple, TCS, Amazon, Ontop, MoonPay, Alienware, Ryder System, Neoris, Brightstar, Open English ClearSale, Monday, Wix, Chewy, EPAM, ServiceNow

Population: 461,080 (2020)

7. Pittsburgh

Companies: Duolingo, JazzHR, Argo AI, Seegrid, Niche, Gecko Robotics, Petuum, RoadBotics, Bonterra, ServiceNow, Crown Castle, CVS Health, Arconic, PPG, Omnicell, Highmark, Wabtec

Population: 301,286 (2020)

6. St. Louis

Companies: Perficent, Belden, Daugherty Business Solutions, TierPoint, Omnigo,  Spectrum, EPAM, Boeing, ServiceNow, BJC, Nidec, Varsity Tutors, Cashapp, ServiceTitan, Decide

Population: 304,709 (2020)

5. Seattle

Companies: T-Mobile, Microsoft, Apple, Google, Meta, Dell, Expedia, Accenture, Wipro, Amazon, TCS, HCL, Unisys, Mindtree, Tableau, Cray, Tech Mahindra, CSS, Lumen, Inspur, CompuCom, Docusign, Epic

Population: 741,251 (2020)

4. Washington D.C

Companies: ZS, Digital Turbine, Yext, Qualtrics, The Aerospace Corporation, Syndigo, Bonterra, EPAM, West Monroe, Capital One, SerbviceNow, Boeing, Optum, VMLY&R, Gannett, Siemens, Perficient

Population: 701,974 (2020)

3. Atlanta

Companies: Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, Visa, Mailchimp, Secureworks, Unity, PGi, Cricket Wireless, Global Payments, Fiserv, Urjanet, Bakkt, Kabbage, Calendly, STORD, GenSpark, Cyble

Population: 497,642 (2020)

2. Zürich

The financial epicentre has the highest number of tech companies per capita, along with Atlanta and Pointe-à-Pitre.

Companies: Google, IBM, Cognizant, Microsoft, SAP, Infosys, Apple, Oracle, amazon, EPAM Systems, Zurich Insurance, Salesforce, Capgemini, Cisco, Wipro, Dell, DXC, TCS, Swisscom, HPE

Population: 402,762 (2020)

1. Bern

Bern is Switzerland’s capital, a beautiful city benefiting from the tech boom. Topping the ranking is an impressive feat for a relatively small city, which regularly gets voted as one of the most liveable places in the world.

Companies: Swisscom, Ebay, IBM, HPE, DXC, Cognizant, Google, CSC, Mathworks, Wipro, Oracle, Microsoft, Capgemini, Tech Manhindra, Unisys, Cisco, HCL, Atos

Population: 133,115 (2020)

In conclusion

While Switzerland is waving the flag proudly for the European Union, one of those to leave the EU, London, ranked as one of the worst cities to pursue a tech career, though it was only second to Tokyo in terms of the amount of tech companies.

In a top 10 dominated by the USA, where San Francisco took the mantle of having the highest average salaries, Asia did claim one category as Singapore took the win as the fastest fixed broadband speed worldwide.