Building an ecosystem in Europe: Attracting tech talent

With the European tech scene thriving, start-up businesses with a value of over $1bn (also known as Unicorns) are growing faster than their US counterparts.

European locations such as Stockholm, London, Amsterdam and cities throughout Switzerland are receiving more funding than ever and gaining a reputation as the perfect place to forge a tech start up.

However, despite this strong growth over the last five years, European firms are still not as strong as those based in the US and China. The view of those who work in the industry is that the European tech scene still has a lot to catch up on, with the highest valuation of a Chinese unicorn standing at over $70bn compared to Europe’s $10bn.

Attracting top talent – ecosystem innovation
When running a successful tech company it is crucial to attract and retain top talent. To do this, startups must be on the path to building an ecosystem of innovation.

With most European talent heading towards Silicon Valley on the west coast of the US, it has become increasingly hard to prevent those with the best tech ideas to be drawn towards the US. To prevent this, firms must improve the overall employee experience, and become well known as being a great place to work in the tech world.

When it isn’t possible to bring talent physically into European firms, companies should be looking towards remote and flexible working within the industry to buck the trend of talent leaving for the US and China.

In the modern day, it is now possible to have a team deserted globally, with Europe the central hub to this type of globalisation and similar time zones.

HR and immigration reform

Individuals with experience and talent are always needed in an evolving ecosystem. Flexible immigration policies that allow talented individuals to work across Europe will enable the innovation of an ecosystem to continue to grow.

This is an area that the US and China struggle with that Europe is currently leading. Despite the uncertainties that may come with Brexit, it is believed flexible working and immigration is the key to unlocking and retaining talent from outside mainland Europe.

At Momenta we are continually building our ecosystem of validated, contingent technology associates with the optimum industry skill sets, readily available when additional specialist support is needed. Read more about how we can assist with technology contingent professionals.