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04.3

An Ecosystem Powered by Migratory Talent

By comparing the nationality of survey respondents with their country of residence, it's possible to get a proxy for the relative share of migrant talent in different regions in Europe. The UK and Germany, led by London and Berlin, are the two most dependent on migrant talent.

Founders' and startup/scale-up employees' backgrounds by subregion of residence

Source:

Legend

  • Immigrant
  • National
Note:
Founder and private tech startup and scaleup employee respondents only.

The UK tech ecosystem is the most heavily dependent on migrant talent of any in Europe.

Migrant talent in European tech

44%
of founders and employees of private tech start-ups in the UK are migrants, more than any other region

European tech startups are highly dependent on talent that has migrated to work for companies outside their home countries.

Migrant talent in European tech

28%
of founders and employees of private European tech startups who are working outside of their home countries

Roughly half of the tech workforce has come from abroad in four European hubs.

Selected European hubs by share of immigrants in tech workforce

Source:

Legend

  • Share of immigrants in the tech workforce (%)
Note:
Only respondents working in the tech industry. Cities with less than 100 respondents filtered out.

The UK is the #1 source of outbound talent leaving to move to out of Europe, accounting for nearly 2.8x as much outbound talent as the next largest source country in Europe.

Top 10 European source countries for non-European destinations in 2018

Source:

Legend

  • Top 10 Sources - 2018
Note:
All interpretations of the LinkedIn data are made by Atomico, not LinkedIn. A 'mover' is defined by LinkedIn as somebody now working in the tech industry that has moved country or industry sector for their primary employment between 2018 and 2017.

For additional context, it is worth analysing a similar dataset covering tech talent movement in 2017 provided by LinkedIn for last year’s State of European Tech.

Top 10 European source countries for non-European destinations in 2017

Source:

Legend

  • Comparison to Similar Data from SOET 2017
Note:
All interpretations of the LinkedIn data are made by Atomico, not LinkedIn. A ‘mover’ is defined by LinkedIn as someone now working in the tech industry that has moved country for their primary employment between 2017 % 2016. Russia not provided in 2017.

Skilled immigration difficulties are taking a toll on Europe’s scaleups, and we are in bad need of more openness in terms of talent acquisition.

I see two major threats, the first one being education and talent. Europe is among the top in terms of talent & research, but it shouldn’t be taken for granted. The challenge is that if we don’t see forward-thinking, long-term and brave investments in the field of education, we might lose this edge that’s keeping Europe on the surface. Skilled immigration difficulties are taking a toll on Europe’s scaleups, and we are in bad need of more openness in terms of talent acquisition – startup visas being great initiatives towards solving this problem.

Rasmus Ekholm

Slush

The UK is the #1 source country for tech talent that is moving within and out of Europe, but it has a much larger share of those moving outside of the European tech ecosystem than within it.

Top 10 European source countries of European movers in 2018

Source:

Legend

  • Moving Inside Europe
  • Moving Outside Europe
Note:
All interpretations of LinkedIn data made by Atomico, not LinkedIn. A 'mover' is defined by LinkedIn as someone now working in tech industry who has moved country or industry sector for primary employment between 2018 & 2017. PL & TR outside not provided.

The UK is today the #1 destination for non-European talent, but faces strong challenges as the destination of choice as the range of viable alternative hubs across Europe expands, especially in Germany, France and the Netherlands.

Top 10 European destinations for non-European movers into European tech industry in 2018

Source:

Legend

  • Top 10 destinations in 2018
Note:
All interpretations of the LinkedIn data are made by Atomico, not LinkedIn. A 'mover' is defined by LinkedIn as somebody now working in the tech industry that has moved country or industry sector for their primary employment between 2018 and 2017.

For London to retain its title as Europe’s fintech capital we must continue to attract talent, and make it easy for that talent to come here.

I remain optimistic about the future of European tech - never before have we come as close to creating the next global tech giant. Of course the uncertainty surrounding Brexit is a challenge. Lots of fintechs like TransferWise will be opening additional offices across the continent to mitigate Brexit risk, and there will certainly be hubs like Berlin, Paris and Amsterdam that benefit from start-up jobs coming to their cities. For London to retain its title as Europe’s fintech capital we must continue to attract talent, and make it easy for that talent to come here. We hire to our headquarters from all over the world, roughly 50% of our London office were not born in the UK. Engineers and product managers are vital, but we recruit from overseas across all our teams. Regulation must be flexible enough to encompass rapidly evolving technical and marketing specialist roles.

Taavet Hinrikus

TransferWise

CEO and co-founder

For additional context, it is worth analysing a similar dataset covering tech talent movement in 2017 provided by LinkedIn for last year’s State of European Tech.

Top 10 European destinations for non-European movers into European tech industry in 2017

Source:

Legend

  • Comparison to Similar Data from SOET 2017
Note:
All interpretations of LinkedIn data made by Atomico, not LinkedIn. A ‘mover’ is defined by LinkedIn as someone now working in tech industry who has moved country for primary employment between 2017 & 2016. Portugal and Belgium not provided by LinkedIn.

Though the largest share of founders in each region have seen no change in the trend of candidates relocating internationally to join their business, they are significantly more likely to have experienced an increase in this trend in the past 12 months, rather than a decline. A larger share of founders in France & Benelux and DACH have seen an increase in this trend, while UK founders are more likely than any region to have seen a decrease.

% change in founders' view on change in candidates relocating internationally to join their company, by subregion (past 12m)

Source:

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  • Increase
  • No change
  • Decrease
Note:
Respondents stating 'Not able to comment' filtered out. Founder respondents only.

Taking the trend from the opposite perspective and looking at trends of founders reporting changes in employee interest to leave the country by relocating overseas, founders in the UK & Ireland and in Eastern Europe are seeing the largest increase compared to other regions.

% change in founders' view on change in employees leaving their country to relocate to another country, by subregion (past 12m)

Source:

Legend

  • Increase
  • No change
  • Decrease
Note:
Respondents stating 'Not able to comment' filtered out. Founder respondents only.