Featuring:

Dan Bieler, Principal Analyst and James McQuivey, VP, Research Director

Show Notes:

As more European organizations shift to digital business models, the competition for talent is getting fierce. Where can you find the resources and skills to bring your business vision to life? A new report from Forrester identifies and ranks Europe’s top skill clusters across a variety of metrics. On this episode, lead researcher Dan Bieler is joined by James McQuivey to discuss the report’s findings and provide some guidance on how to put those findings into practice for your organization.

The episode starts with a definition of what skill clusters are — cities or regions with high availability and quality of desired skills — and why they’re particularly important to technology and business leaders in Europe today. For example, Bieler says the shift to remote work has increased the demand for both digital skills and soft skills in the technology sector. Identifying a specific city that ranks high on the skills to meet your needs can be a good way to fill those new demands efficiently.

The conversation then moves on to the rankings, which identify where the top-rated skill clusters are around Europe and the factors that make them the most desirable regions. Bieler says that the Nordic regions rank highest, with top-10 clusters located in Helsinki, Stockholm, Copenhagen, and Oslo. There are also several high-ranking clusters in central Europe.

What makes these regions so competitive? “In general, these countries have good educational levels, so STEM subjects are widely taken up by students,” Bieler says. Other factors such as living standards and free movement of labor are taken into account, as is the maturity of “soft skills” in the cluster such as communication, language, and problem-solving skills.

Later in the episode, Bieler provides some guidance for organizations to consider before they start looking at which skill clusters might work best for them. The episode closes with Bieler discussing one country that ranked surprisingly low and which factors played into that lower score.

To learn more about this report, watch this webinar, Where And How To Find The Right Tech Talent.