LinkedIn Reveals Professional Migration Across Europe & Middle East

 I’ve been working in data analytics roles for the last eight years across different industries. I’m now Senior Insights Manager for LinkedIn responsible for a team of nine data scientists across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. As you can imagine, I am very passionate about the potential of big data. For me, working at LinkedIn is like being a kid in a sweet shop!

That’s why I was excited the day we joined forces with our communications team to analyse the public information on LinkedIn to identify job functions and industries that are winning and losing talent. For this study, we focused on Ireland, the Netherlands, the UK, and the UAE.

 The goal was simple: Provide our members and customers with insights that can help them be more productive and successful – whether they’re considering their next job move or looking for their next great hire.

 After a few weeks, countless cups of coffee, and lots of number crunching, I am excited to share our findings with you:

A few key trends stand out: 

The Rise Of The Entrepreneur

Entrepreneurship as a job function is on the rise across Europe and the Middle East. It’s the top job function experiencing year-on-year growth almost across the board, with some countries experiencing growth at well over 100%. This dramatic growth in professionals employed in entrepreneurial roles reflects a trend of people leaving larger companies with a thousand or more employees to go it alone. What does this mean for large enterprises? Well, it’s safe to say they should likely focus on retention as much as they focus on hiring.    

The Developing Business Of Business Development

If you need further evidence of growing optimism among professionals in Europe, you need look no further than business development. Businesses in Europe and beyond appear to be investing in their capacity to serve new customers and contracts, as more and more professionals are moving into business development roles. In Ireland, this job function has experienced year-on-year growth of more than 80%. And in the Netherlands this it’s an astonishing 124%. It’s a welcome and positive economic signal.

The Rise Of The Software Industry Across Europe

The software industry is booming across Europe. The countries we analysed almost all indicated a net gain of professionals in this area, sometimes at the cost of their counterparts in technology manufacturing and hardware. Europe is fast becoming a high-tech powerhouse.

If you want to learn more, my colleague Sohan Murthy just published a blog post about research his team conducted regarding global migration trends over the last year. Click here if you’d like to read his post.

We’re hoping to do more of these types of analysis moving forward. If you’ve got a great idea for the types of info we should analyse, drop me a note in the comments section below!