Rankings & Hiring Leaders Awards Explained

How the cord UK Tech Hiring Rankings Are Calculated

Methodology last updated: Spring 2026 edition

The cord UK Tech Hiring Rankings highlight the companies that are growing their engineering teams fastest and attracting the most interest from developers across the UK tech ecosystem.

The rankings are designed to give both candidates and employers a clear view of hiring momentum in the market, based on real hiring and candidate activity.

Each edition analyses thousands of UK technology companies and is published quarterly. Companies are ranked across several categories including Fastest Growing and Most Popular, and further segmented by industry and company size.

This document explains the methodology behind the rankings and how the data is analysed to produce the final lists.

Data Sources

The rankings combine several datasets to create a comprehensive picture of hiring activity across the UK technology market.

Company Headcount Data

To determine hiring growth, company headcount data is sourced from a combination of:

• Crunchbase

• Clay

• Internal company information within cord

This allows us to calculate year-over-year (YoY) headcount growth for each company.

Hiring Activity Data

To determine candidate demand and popularity, we analyse application behaviour across the cord platform, including:

• Applications submitted directly through cord

• External applications via redirected job links

This data reflects real candidate interest in engineering roles.

cord Platform Activity

Additional metrics such as messaging and application interactions are used to support the Hiring Leaders Awards, which recognise companies that provide strong candidate experiences.

Eligibility Criteria

To ensure the rankings represent companies actively participating in the UK hiring market, organisations must meet the following criteria:

• The company must have a UK presence

• The company must be actively hiring engineering talent

• At least one open role must exist in one of the following categories at the ranking closing date: Software Development Data Infrastructure

Companies that operate as recruitment agencies or staffing firms are excluded from the rankings.

Ranking Categories

The rankings are organised into several core categories, each measuring a different aspect of hiring activity.

Fastest Growing Companies

The Fastest Growing rankings identify companies that have expanded their engineering teams most rapidly over the past year.

Growth is calculated using year-over-year percentage change in company headcount.

Growth calculation:

Growth % = (Current Headcount – Headcount 12 Months Ago) / Headcount 12 Months Ago

This provides a consistent measure of organisational growth across companies of different sizes.

Handling Extreme Growth in Very Small Companies

In very small organisations, percentage growth can be artificially inflated.

For example:

• A company growing from 1 employee to 8 employees represents 700% growth

• A company growing from 100 employees to 700 employees also represents 600%+ growth

While both show significant expansion, the second represents a far larger scale of hiring.

To avoid skewed rankings:

• Extremely small companies with unusually large percentage growth may be removed from the Fastest Growing rankings when their size makes the growth figure misleading.

• This ensures the rankings reflect meaningful hiring expansion, rather than mathematical anomalies.
  
  

Most Popular Companies

The Most Popular rankings identify the companies generating the most interest from engineers on the cord platform.

Popularity is measured using candidate application behaviour over the previous three months.

The ranking combines two types of application signals:

1. Direct Applications: Applications submitted directly through cord.
2. External Applications: Applications where candidates are redirected to apply via an external system (such as a company careers page or ATS).

Because external applications are harder to track and typically represent stronger candidate intent, they are weighted differently.

Application Weighting

• Direct cord applications = 1x weight

• External applications = 3x weight

This weighting system helps ensure that companies receiving high levels of candidate interest through external apply flows are represented accurately in the rankings.

No other weighting factors are applied.

Companies are then ranked based on total weighted applications over the previous three months.

Industry Categories

Companies are grouped into industry sectors based on their classification within cord’s company database.

Each industry category includes several related sub-industries.

FinTech

Includes companies classified under:

• Finance

• FinTech

• Banking

• Investment

• Payments

• Accounting
  
  

Consultancy

Includes companies classified as:

• Consultancy
  
  

AI

Includes companies classified as:

• Machine Learning and AI
  
  

Data & Analytics

Includes companies classified as:

• Data

• Big Data

• Analytics
  
  

E-commerce

Includes companies classified as:

• E-commerce

• Retail

• Retail Technology

• Fashion
  
  

InsurTech

Includes companies classified as:

• Insurance

• InsurTech
  
  

Security

Includes companies classified as:

• Computer and Network Security

• Security

• Identity and Access

• Privacy
  
  

HealthTech

Includes companies classified as:

• Health and Fitness

• HealthTech

• Mental Health

• BioTech

• Pharmaceuticals

• MedTech
  
  

Sustainability

Includes companies classified as:

• EnviroTech

• Sustainability
  
  

Blockchain

Includes companies classified as:

• Blockchain

Industry classifications are primarily based on the company’s stored information within the cord database. In some cases, additional research may be conducted to refine these classifications.

Company Size Categories

To allow fair comparison between organisations at different stages of growth, companies are also grouped by size.

• Small Companies: 1–50 employees - Typically early-stage startups.

• Mid-Sized Companies: 51–500 employees - Often scaling companies expanding their teams.

• Large Companies: 501+ employees - Established organisations with larger engineering teams.

Companies are ranked within these size bands to ensure comparisons are made between organisations operating at similar scales.

Hiring Leaders Awards

In addition to hiring growth and popularity rankings, cord also recognises companies that provide exceptional experiences for candidates.

The Hiring Leaders Awards evaluate how effectively companies engage with candidates during the hiring process.

These awards are based on activity within the cord platform, including:

• Application interactions

• Candidate messaging behaviour

Metrics used may include factors such as:

• Responsiveness to candidates

• Timeliness of replies

• Engagement during the hiring process

This category highlights companies that not only attract talent, but also create positive candidate experiences.

Interpreting the Rankings

The rankings provide insight into several key signals within the UK tech hiring market.

• Fastest Growing - Identifies companies expanding their engineering teams most rapidly.

• Most Popular - Shows which companies engineers are most interested in joining.

• Hiring Leaders - Highlights organisations that provide strong hiring experiences.

Because the rankings are segmented by industry and company size, they allow readers to identify:

• Which sectors are hiring most aggressively

• Which companies are attracting the most engineering talent

• Where hiring momentum is strongest within the UK tech ecosystem

Important Notes

While the rankings provide valuable insights into hiring activity, they should be interpreted with several considerations:

• Popularity reflects candidate demand, not necessarily company quality.

• Growth figures reflect reported headcount changes, which may vary slightly depending on data source updates.

• Industry classifications depend on company categorisation and may evolve over time.

The rankings are intended to provide directional insights into hiring trends, rather than definitive measures of company performance.

About cord

cord is an AI-powered hiring platform connecting companies directly with verified engineers.

Today, 1 in 3 engineers in the UK use cord to explore new opportunities, rising to 2 in 3 among senior engineers. The platform enables companies to connect with high-quality engineering talent through AI-powered discovery, messaging and hiring tools.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is my company not included in the rankings? Companies must:

• Have a UK presence

• Be actively hiring engineers

• Have at least one open Developer, Data or Infrastructure role at the ranking closing date.

• Recruitment agencies are excluded.
  

How often are the rankings updated?

• The rankings are published quarterly.

• Each edition reflects hiring activity and candidate behaviour during the preceding months.
  

Why are some very small companies not included in the Fastest Growing rankings?

• Very small companies can show extremely high percentage growth from small hiring changes (for example growing from 1 to 8 employees).

• In some cases these companies may be excluded to ensure the rankings reflect meaningful hiring growth at scale.
  

How can my company appear in the rankings?

• To appear in the rankings, companies must: Be based in the UK Be actively hiring engineers Have open roles in Software Development, Data or Infrastructure

• Companies that attract strong candidate demand or show significant headcount growth will naturally rise in the rankings.
  

Do the rankings measure hiring success?

• No. The rankings measure hiring activity, growth and candidate demand, rather than overall company performance.

• They are intended to provide insight into hiring trends within the UK technology market.