Washington, D.C. easily outranks every other city in the U.S. as the best place for women in the tech industry, according to a new SmartAsset report.
The financial software company looked at the combination of the percentage of women in tech jobs, how much they earn compared to men, their income after housing costs and the three year tech employment growth for both men and women. D.C. blew away the competition, with an overall index score of 91.98. The next closest score was 78.7.
While women fill a little over a quarter of all tech jobs in the U.S., the percentage climbs to just above 40 percent in D.C. and there's essentially no gender pay gap in D.C. tech. Additionally, D.C. has actually gone up slightly in its index score from the year before. Nearby, Baltimore did well too, coming in at number four on the list this year after Kansas City and Detroit. Arlington, Va. though is way down at 34, largely because of a much lower median wage and an astonishing 20 percent gender pay gap. Some of D.C.'s success might be a result of the many federal government technical jobs, but the city also has a lot of companies that make diversity a priority.
It's notable that places with huge a huge tech presence don't necessarily do as well for women. San Francisco and San Jose both have men filling more than three-quarters of the tech workforce and women earning about 15 percent less than men in those jobs. And some of the bigger tech companies like Twitter, Amazon, Google and Facebook still have a relatively tiny number of women in technical positions.
You can see the whole chart below.
