You do not have to be perfect to start. You just have to be honest about where you are.
The UNBOUND Stamp of Approval is the UK tech & transformation employer certification for gender equity in the tech function. Three tiers. Assessed against published criteria. Verified against real hiring data.
It’s built for employers who know there is work to do, want a credible way to show they are doing it, and would rather start now than wait for everything to look perfect. That last group is most employers. Including the good ones.
You can find out where you stand before anyone else does.
Before any employer becomes publicly certified, they sit a confidential diagnostic against the same criteria the public Stamp is awarded against. We assess where you are, attach La Fosse benchmark data so you can see how that compares to similar UK tech organisations, and give you back a report only you see.
From there, you choose what happens next. Apply for public certification at the tier you qualify for. Hold the diagnostic and work toward a higher tier first. Or take the report and walk away. Nothing is published without you.
Most employers we speak to want to do this and are worried they will come up short in public. That is the wrong way to enter this kind of certification, and it is a worse reason to avoid it.
The diagnostic exists so employers can see the truth of their tech function privately, against data nobody else has, and decide on their own terms how and when to go public. It is the same intelligence La Fosse uses to advise senior customers, now applied specifically to gender equity in your tech function, by an independent body.
This is not a test you can fail. It is a position you can choose to act on.
The three tiers, and what each one actually means
The Stamp of Approval is a certification that appears on job listings and careers pages. It tells every person who sees it exactly where that employer stands – verified, not self-reported.
The three tiers are:
UNBOUND Approved
You have named a senior sponsor. You have defined an action obligation you can actually deliver. You have submitted your baseline data. You are on the record as doing the work.
A public commitment by a real organisation with a real plan. Most certified employers begin here.
UNBOUND Endorsed
You have demonstrated verifiable progress against your criteria over time, cross-checked against La Fosse hiring data. The action obligation you set is being met.
The plan is real, and so are the results.
UNBOUND Certified
You are measurably ahead of comparable UK tech employers on the criteria that matter, and willing to be held to that publicly.
A small group, by design.
Every tier is a credible signal in its own right. Committed is not a consolation prize, and the page candidates land on does not present it that way.
What you have to put your name to
Every certified employer commits to one action obligation: a specific, defined thing your organisation is doing to improve gender equity in your tech function over the next review period.
You define it. We help you scope it. It has to be real, but it does not have to be heroic.
Your action obligation is yours. It does not have to look like anybody else’s. It does have to be specific enough that we can tell, at the next review, whether you delivered it.
Examples from the founding cohort:
- Closing a known pay gap in a specific job family
- Restructuring promotion criteria for senior engineering roles
- Setting a senior tech hiring target evidenced in 18 months
- Building a structured returner programme with named accountability
How the process actually runs
What you get if you hold the stamp
A signal where candidates actually decide
The Stamp appears on your job listings, not buried in a careers page. Women in tech see your tier and your action obligation before they engage with you. That is a different conversion problem to the one your DEI page is solving, and it is the one that affects who you hire.
Benchmark data nobody else can sell you
Certified employers receive La Fosse benchmark data on hiring, promotion, and pay across comparable UK tech organisations. In detail. That intelligence is held by La Fosse and shared only with certified Stamp holders.
A defensible position as the ground shifts
US employers are walking back DEI commitments. UK employers are not, and the regulatory direction is moving the other way. The UK Women in Tech Taskforce launched in December 2025 with £4 million behind it. The Tech Talent Charter is defunct. Employers who establish verified credibility now set the terms when pressure increases.
A mark that means something because it can be lost
Every other employer signal can be self-awarded, paid for, or pledged. The Stamp is the only one a candidate can look at and know somebody else assessed it, against published criteria, with real data. That is what makes it worth displaying.
Renewal is a conversation, not a verdict
Every Stamp is time-limited and reviewed at agreed intervals. The review is a working session against your action obligation and the data, not a surprise audit. If progress has slipped, we talk about why, and what would put it back on track before any public state changes.
If an employer abandons the work or refuses to engage with renewal, the Stamp moves to Pending renewal and, if that does not change, eventually to Unstamped. That has to be true for the mark to mean anything. But it is not the first move, and it has never been the goal.
The point of certification is that you keep doing the work. Not that we catch you when you don’t.
Get in touch
For employers
To apply for assessment or find out more about the founding cohort, contact the UNBOUND team at lucy.kemp@lafosse.com
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For women in tech
Access the UNBOUND community and find out more about our mentorship programme
UNBOUND is an initiative of La Fosse Associates, backed by proprietary hiring data from across the UK tech sector.
