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Tech giants are no longer among the top ten places to work in the UK, according to new data from employer-ratings site Glassdoor. Google, which topped the rankings last year, is only 13th on the new list, while Apple has slid from ninth to 43rd, and Facebook has dropped out of the top 50 entirely.

The list of the best companies to work for has been published since 2014. It is based on anonymous feedback and reviews from employees provided through Glassdoor’s websites between October 2017 and October 2018.


Users rank their workplace on job satisfaction, career opportunities, compensation and benefits, culture and values, senior management and work-life balance. An algorithm then combines these scores and creates an overall score out of five for the year.

So, who is at the top now? Anglian Water tops the list of the best UK companies with 1,000 or more employees, with staff praising its “proud, passionate” workforce and “positive culture”. Google is one of only three companies to have made the top 50 every year, and was praised for the interesting projects and flexibility. However, the search giant’s average rating fell from 4.5 to 4.4, while Apple’s dropped from 4.3 to 4.2. Microsoft shot up the list from 24th to 11th, while software firms SAP and Salesforce made the top ten.

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It may not be a surprise that Google and Facebook have dropped in this year's rankings: both companies have been in the news following internal and external scandals. At the start of November, thousands of Google staff members staged a global walkout over claims of sexual harassment, gender inequality and systemic racism. (The company responded by revamping its policies on sexual harassment, but did not cede to requests to add an employee representative to the board of Alphabet, Google’s parent company.)

Google has also been criticised by its own employees for its work on Project Dragonfly, a search app in development for the Chinese market. More than 400 Google staff have signed an open letter urging the company to cancel the project, arguing that it will enable mass censorship and human rights violations by the Chinese government.


One Facebook employee review says that although the company is easily the best they have ever worked at, “bad press can affect morale”, and there’s been plenty of that to accompany the social network’s disappearance from the top 50. Facebook has been criticised for inappropriate data sharing, playing a role in the manipulation of elections, and hiring PR companies to dig up dirt on its critics.

Apple has largely avoided any criticism over its employment practices, at least in the West, and its slide from the top ten is harder to explain. The company was placed 41st in 2016, and rose to ninth in 2017 before returning closer to its original position. In 2017, Tim Cook was rated the highest ranking CEO on Glassdoor, with a 66 per cent approval rating among his staff.

It’s also worth noting that although the tech companies may have lost their positions at the very top of the list, they’re still far above the overall average score of the 830,000 employers on Glassdoor, which is 3.4. New entries to the list this year include management consultants Bain & Company, retailer IKEA, Intercontinental Hotels Group, and restaurant chain wagamama.

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The best UK companies to work for, according to Glassdoor users

1. Anglian Water (4.5)

2. Bain & Company (4.5)

3. XPO Logistics (4.5)

4. Bromford (4.5)

5. Salesforce (4.4)

6. Sky Betting & Gaming (4.4)

7. Hiscox (4.4)

8. SAP (4.4)

9. Taylor Wimpey (4.4)

10. Royal London (4.4)

11. Microsoft (4.4)

12. Gartner (4.4)

13. Google (4.4)

13. Sytner (4.4)

15. Capital One (4.3)

16. IKEA (4.3)

17. Arnold Clark (4.3)

18. HomeServe UK (4.3)

19. Nando’s UK (4.3)

20. AppDynamics (4.3)

21. Metro Bank (4.3)

22. Arcadis (4.3)

23. InterContinental Hotels Group (4.3)

24. Screwfix (4.3)

25. Civica (4.3)

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