Warrington Named 9th Best City in the UK for Women in STEM [Study]

Warrington ranks 9th in the UK for women working in STEM, according to a new CoworkingCafe study analysing career prospects across 95 of the country’s largest cities and towns.

While women now hold over a quarter of STEM roles nationally, pay parity and access to opportunity still vary significantly by location. To identify the best places in the UK for women pursuing STEM careers, we assessed 10 key indicators across workforce strength, earnings and affordability.

Here’s how Warrington performs across the key metrics:

• Low unemployment rate of 3.1% (#8 nationally), pointing to one of the tighter labour markets in the country.
• Strong labour demand for STEM jobs, averaging 28 new monthly STEM job adverts per 10,000 working-age residents (#11 nationally), placing Warrington just outside the UK’s top 10 for hiring momentum.
• A STEM job concentration of 7.8% (#20 nationally), highlighting a solid scientific and technical employment base.
• Women hold 23.6% of local STEM roles, reflecting more moderate female representation compared with other top-10 cities.
• Women’s STEM professional pay reaches £47,647 per year, positioning Warrington among the stronger-paying regional markets.
• Women’s STEM associate pay stands at £37,114 (#2 nationally), making it one of the highest-paying cities in the UK for women in associate-level STEM roles.
• Regional pay parity shows women working as STEM professionals earn 86.8% of male hourly pay (#8 nationally), while those in associate roles earn 96.1% of men’s hourly pay (#2).
• Just 25.3% of median full-time earnings goes towards rent in Warrington — among the lower rental burdens in the study.
• The average home costs 6.1 times the typical full-time annual salary.

The North West also demonstrates strong depth beyond Warrington, with Manchester (8th) and Liverpool (10th) both securing places in the national top 10. Chester ranks 18th, while Stockport rounds out the top 20  — reinforcing the region’s growing strength as a competitive environment for women pursuing STEM careers.

National highlights:

• Top 3 hotspots for women in STEM: Cambridge (1st), Edinburgh (2nd) and Stevenage (3rd).
• Scotland performs particularly well, with Edinburgh (2nd), Glasgow (6th) and Aberdeen (7th) all in the top ten.
• The North West also secures three top-10 spots: Manchester (8th), Warrington (9th) and Liverpool (10th)
• Greater London (assessed separately as a benchmark market) leads the UK in absolute STEM hiring demand. The capital has some of the highest salaries for women in professional STEM roles (£52,877), and has a high female representation at 30.7%, while it records the steepest housing cost burden in the study.