The trust component is the part of the Index Score, worth 15 of 100 points, that carries the Upwork talent badges shown on the public profile: Top Rated Plus, Top Rated and Expert-Vetted.
The weights are fixed. Top Rated Plus counts as 1.0, Top Rated as 0.7, and no badge as zero; Expert-Vetted adds 0.3 on top of whichever of those applies, and the total is capped at 1.0. So a Top Rated agency earns 10.5 points, a Top Rated Plus agency 15, a Top Rated agency whose page also shows Expert-Vetted 15, and an Expert-Vetted profile with no other badge 4.5. The component is the same for agencies and freelancers.
The badges are read from the public page at each observation, so the component moves when Upwork grants or removes a badge at its fortnightly review. Upwork decides the badges against its published criteria, a Job Success Score of 90% or more, earnings and history thresholds, no recent account holds; the index does not re-derive them and does not award a badge Upwork has not shown.
Trust is the only component that overlaps with another: the Job Success Score is part of what earns a badge and is also the quality component. That double counting is deliberate, because the badge adds what the score alone cannot, the earnings and history thresholds behind it. Rising Talent is not currently part of the component.
How Upwork Insights uses it
Of the 28,921 agencies indexed as of Oct 31, 2026, 1,489 hold Top Rated Plus and 1,346 Top Rated, 9.8% between them; the stat page breaks the badges down by category and the weights are in methodology, section 3.