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From Atlantic shores to the Black Sea coast, Baltic beaches, and the banks of the Danube, Europe boasts a growing number of vibrant tech hubs and ‘unicorn factories’ which offer a wide variety of attractive opportunities for IT professionals and investors. If London, Paris, Dublin and Berlin don’t take your fancy as places to live and work, there are plenty more European tech hubs to choose from, and some of them aren’t quite so obvious.
Lisbon, Portugal
Portugal, and Lisbon in particular, have emerged as top destinations for digital nomads, tech entrepreneurs, and established companies in search of talent. Attractions for the digital nomads are obvious – climate, affordable cost of living, high quality of life, and the capability to command pay rates not far off those of London and Dublin add up to a heady mix for remote tech workers willing to cross national borders.
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A quite liberal visa and tax regime make it very attractive for non-EU nationals as well. The Non-Habitual Resident (NHR) visa scheme, for example, allows holders to pay a 20% flat rate of income tax for a period of 10 years and no tax at all on income earned outside of Portugal. The so-called Golden Visa scheme also offers a range of benefits for entrepreneurs starting up businesses in the country.
Schemes such as these, generous government support, and a ready supply of talent have seen Portugal attract statement investments from companies like Revolut, Google, and Amazon in recent years. Other home-grown success stories include Talkdesk, Feedzai, DefinedCrowd, and Outsystems.
Bucharest, Romania
Moving eastwards, Romanian capital Bucharest is emerging as a new tech hub and has been ranked in the top 10 tech cities of the future listing by the fDi Intelligence division of the Financial Times.
Romania boasts a highly educated tech workforce and a long track record of excellence in computer science research by its universities and research institutes. More recently it has established itself as a leading outsourcing location for IT companies. It has also attracted direct investments from global leaders like Oracle, IBM and Facebook while indigenous high growth companies include UiPath and cyber specialist Bitdefender.
Interestingly, the country is already experiencing a tech talent squeeze and long before the war in Ukraine, was actively recruiting tech professionals in both that country and Moldova.
The country’s very low cost of living coupled with its varied climate make it very attractive for digital nomads and entrepreneurs who wish to take advantage of low taxes and strong government supports.
Vilnius, Lithuania
A carefully crafted government strategy to nurture the tech sector by creating a receptive operating environment and developing a pipeline of highly skilled tech talent is paying dividends for Lithuania which is becoming recognised as a regional centre of excellence for global tech companies.
Vilnius, the capital, has already established itself as one of Europe’s leading locations for Fintech start-ups. It is now Europe’s second largest fintech hub, behind London, with more than 200 companies operating there.
Other areas of strength include AI, games development, regtech, insuretech, and anti-money laundering solutions.
Companies with a significant presence in Vilnius include Uber, Revolut, Devbridge Group, Bentley, Wix, and Adform.
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Stockholm and Malmo, Sweden
When it comes to vibrant hubs, it’s hard to beat Stockholm. The Finnish Venture Capital Association has rated Sweden as the second biggest European country by investment volume in start-ups and early-stage companies: think disruptive payments provider Klarna, for example.
And such has been the return on those investments that Stockholm has earned the title of unicorn factory. Overall, the city has been responsible for the creation of 35 unicorns, placing it in second place worldwide behind Silicon Valley in terms of unicorns per head of population. SparkLabs Group, the network of start-up accelerators and venture capital funds, has rated Stockholm as the third top start-up hub in the world, behind Beijing and Silicon Valley.
Sweden’s success is attributed by many to a strong industrial and tech heritage combined with prescient digital investments by successive governments over the years. Not only did the state invest heavily in broadband infrastructure, giving the country one of the best networks anywhere in the world, but it also subsidised personal PC purchase with the aim of putting a computer in every home in order to improve digital literacy.
While tech professionals won’t necessarily be attracted to Sweden by its cost of living or tax levels, they will find its health and social care infrastructure very hard to beat and with a social welfare net offering people up to 80% of their previous pay should they become unemployed, it’s not a bad place to take a risk and join a start-up.
And for a more laid-back version of Stockholm, people can choose the rapidly developing tech hub in Malmo where property is more affordable and commuting times are that much shorter than for Stockholm.
Vienna, Austria
This ancient imperial capital is going through something of a technology renaissance at the moment and is emerging as a European hub for the industry.
The start-up culture is remarkable with more than 1,300 new companies founded in Vienna since 2009, according to the latest Austrian Startup Monitor report, with the number growing by about 15% a year. Those statistics have propelled Vienna into the world’s top 100 start-up hubs in 85th place.
The city has also given birth to its first tech unicorns in the form of cryptocurrency trading platform Bitpanda and online education firm GoStudent which both raised over €200m during 2021.
In recent years Vienna has been rated the world’s most liveable city on two occasions by the Economist Intelligence Unit, scoring over 99% for healthcare, culture, environment, education and infrastructure.
From an investment perspective the city hosts 1,500 research institutes. Austria’s R&D to GDP ratio is almost 4% – second best in the EU after Sweden, and fifth in the OECD.
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Amsterdam is firmly established as one of Europe’s leading tech hubs. Tech leaders located there are software security and media technology company Irdeto, Dutch tech education specialist Bit Academy, online grocer Picnic, and quantum computing research centre QuSoft, along with household names TenCent, Cisco, Tata Consultancy Services, and Canon.
International connectivity could hardly be better, and quality of life is ranked among the highest in the world. Furthermore, Amsterdam might just be Europe’s friendliest city for digital nomads.
Add to this a rich technology heritage – the Python programming language was invented in the Netherlands in 1989, and a business-friendly environment which is rated as one of the least bureaucratic in Europe and you’ve got a winning combination for both IT workers and investors.
Catch our interview with Paul Down, Head of Sales at Intigriti.
