Digital Leaders: top cities for digital education and careers
A new ranking explores which cities have the highest concentration of top universities in digital and tech education
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When it comes to thriving tech sectors, certain cities and locations spring to mind: London, San Francisco and Tokyo, maybe.
However, have you considered Mumbai or Frankfurt or the US state of North Carolina? According to a new series of Digital Leader rankings, these are among the top locations for a digital education.
The rankings, put together by French consultancy Emerging and published exclusively by Times Higher Education, allow students to explore which universities have a good reputation in providing a digital education and encouraging tech skills and entrepreneurship.
The ranking was put together from data collected from two surveys conducted in the past year. Among the 3,400 participants were corporate executives, start-up executives and young digital professionals. Participants were asked to vote for up to 10 institutions, from a base of 1,000 universities, that they believed excelled across six digital and tech categories. Additional data was provided by Crunchbase. The full methodology can be found here.
Top cities for a digital education
These are the hubs with the highest number of universities in the main Digital Leaders ranking. Alongside the expected digital hot spots in the US and the UK, four cities in India make it the joint most represented country alongside the US.
| Rank | Hub |
| 1 | New York City, New York, United States |
| 2 | Greater Boston Area, Massachusetts, United States |
| 3 | Los Angeles, California, United States |
| 4 | London, United Kingdom |
| 5 | Paris, France |
| 6 | San Francisco Bay Area, California, United States |
| 7 | Greater Chicago Area, Illinois, United States |
| 8 | Mumbai, Maharashtra, India |
| 9 | Madrid, Spain |
| 10 | Greater Atlanta Area, Georgia, United States |
| 11 | Sydney, New South Wales, Australia |
| 12 | Washington D.C, United States |
| 13 | Greater San Diego Area, California, United States |
| 14 | Bengaluru, Karnataka, India |
| =15 | Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India |
| =15 | Greater Miami Area, Florida, United States |
| 17 | Seoul, South Korea |
| 18 | Singapore |
| 19 | Greater Seattle Area, Washington, United States |
| 20 | Frankfurt, Germany |
| 21 | Tokyo, Japan |
| 22 | Greater Denver Area, Colorado, United States |
| 23 | New Delhi, Delhi, India |
| =24 | North Carolina, United States |
| =24 | Greater Baltimore-Maryland Area, United States |
| 26 | Austin, Texas, United States |
| 27 | Budapest, Hungary |
| 28 | Barcelona, Spain |
| 29 | Hamburg, Germany |
| 30 | Berlin, Germany |
Top cities for retaining digital graduates
For students looking to study and settle down in the same place, these cities might be of interest. These are the cities that are the best at retaining tech graduates, according to the data collected by Emerging. While London and New York take the top two positions, cities in South American countries such as Brazil and Argentina feature frequently throughout the ranking.
African cities Nairobi, Cairo, Cape Town and Johannesburg are listed, while European cities include Paris, Stockholm and Barcelona.
| Rank | Hub |
| 1 | London, United Kingdom |
| 2 | Greater New York Area, New York, United States |
| 3 | São Paulo, Brazil |
| 4 | Buenos Aires, Distrito Federal, Argentina |
| 5 | Mumbai, Maharashtra, India |
| 6 | Paris, France |
| 7 | Sydney, New South Wales, Australia |
| =8 | Cape Town, South Africa |
| =8 | Los Angeles, California, United States |
| 10 | Rio De Janeiro, Brazil |
| 11 | Tel Aviv, Israel |
| 12 | Bogotá, Colombia |
| 13 | Belo Horizonte, Brazil |
| 14 | Beijing, China |
| 15 | Santiago, Chile |
| =16 | Melbourne, Victoria, Australia |
| =16 | Mexico City, Mexico |
| =16 | San Francisco, California, United States |
| 19 | Seattle, Washington, United States |
| 20 | Johannesburg, South Africa |
| =21 | Stockholm, Sweden |
| =21 | Austin, Texas, United States |
| =23 | Nairobi, Kenya |
| =23 | Barcelona, Spain |
| =23 | Bengaluru, Karnataka, India |
| =26 | Stanford, California, United States |
| =26 | Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India |
| =26 | Cairo, Egypt |
| =26 | Atlanta, Georgia, United States |
| =26 | Singapore |
Cities with the highest percentages of female tech managers
These cities had the highest percentage of female tech managers, according to the participants of the Emerging survey and the Crunchbase data.
| Hub | Percentage of female tech managers |
| Brasil, São Paulo, Brazil | 23.90 |
| Washington D.C, United States | 22.50 |
| New Haven, Connecticut, United States | 19.40 |
| New York City, New York, United States | 18.50 |
| New Delhi, Delhi, India | 18.30 |
| Austin, Texas, United States | 18.10 |
| Bogotá, Colombia |
17.40 |
| London, United Kingdom | 17.10 |
| Buenos Aires, Argentina | 16.70 |
| Monterrey, Mexico | 16.70 |
| Rio De Janeiro, Brazil | 16.70 |
| Atlanta, Georgia, United States | 16.20 |
| Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States | 16.00 |
| Sydney, New South Wales, Australia |
15.20 |
| Cambridge, United Kingdom | 14.90 |
| Stanford, California, United States | 14.10 |
| Boston, Massachusetts, United States | 13.90 |
| Greater New York Area, New York, United States | 13.60 |
| Oxford, United Kingdom |
13.40 |
| São Paulo, Sao Paulo, Brazil | 11.80 |
| Tel Aviv, Israel | 11.80 |
|
Paris, France |
11.40 |
| Berkeley, California, United States | 11.40 |
| Los Angeles, California, United States | 11.10 |
| Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States | 8.70 |
| Cape Town, South Africa | 7.70 |
| Mumbai, Maharashtra, India | 7.50 |
