Introducing our new European Skills Transformation Index 

The labour market is changing. Job titles no longer serve to define what each employee brings to the table - skills do. And the European Commission is aware of it, so much so that it named 2023 the official European Year of Skills. 

The European Year of Skills 

The European Year of Skills is a set of initiatives aimed at closing existing skills gaps and breaking down barriers that are standing in the way of innovation and sustainability in Europe. The goal is to train, reskill, and upskill EU citizens so not only employers get the skills they need to meet business objectives, but European citizens become more employable too. 

The European Year of Skills marks a crucial time for every organisation to rethink and strategise. Do you have the right skill sets in your company? Are you talking the same language of skills that candidates talk, or is there a mismatch between what you’re looking for, and what talent can offer? These are questions that can be answered with labour market data. 

To get you up to speed with the fast-paced European labour market, Lightcast built an interactive European Skills Transformation Index detailing the latest skills demand trends, as well as recruitment and occupation figures across nine EU countries, plus the UK. 

How can our European Skills Transformation Index help you?

We built the European Skills Transformation Index to help you and your organisation understand some of the skills changes in occupations and industries across the continent. The information will aid you in understanding which occupations are changing most in terms of their skills component; what skills are employers are seeking when recruiting these occupations, and how do some of the biggest companies in the EU and UK compare with each other in terms of skills needs.

The data presented in the Index is not only insightful in terms of what it tells us about certain skills, occupations and industries, but  also because it hints towards how your organisation might use similar Lightcast data for your own market. For instance, to benchmark your skills requirements against your competitors, to uncover skills gaps in your organisation, and to be better equipped to make role, talent, learning, and hiring decisions.

But the European Skills Transformation Index doesn’t just help private companies and talent and business leaders. Governmental organisations can use this sort of data to inform partners and clients, and discover new opportunities for growth in their region. Equally, educational institutions can compare this type of data to the skills they are teaching, and revise their curriculum to match the current needs of European employers.

The European Skills Transformation Index is composed of: 

The Skills Index 

Our skills index enables you to understand how skills demand has changed between 2021 and 2022 across various occupations. We analysed nine different EUcountries - Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland - plus the United Kingdom. 

We begin with our Skills Index, which ranks the top 25 occupations across the ten countries according to their level of skills change - so the higher the rank, the higher the skills change. Many of the occupations that make it into this list are digital, which won't come as much of a surprise. However, there are some occupations in there that you probably won't expect to see.

In-Demand Skills

The Lightcast team doesn’t like to keep everything high-level, but loves to dig into the detail. So in our next section, we’ve taken the top 10 occupations from the Skills Index, and delved into them to identify the top 20 specialised skills requested by employers across the 10 countries in 2022. Again, as well as giving you some fascinating data, you’ll also get a sense of how we can unpick the labour market you are focused on, helping you to glean the kind of invaluable insights that will help your organisation make better decisions. 

Industry focus

All of which leads up to what may well be the apex of the Skills Transformation Index: the Industry focus Here, we look at granular data for five of the most vital industries in Europe, which have experienced considerable changes in the last few years, impacted by economic and societal trends. These are: 

• Advanced manufacturing

• Consulting

• Energy

• Finance 

• Pharmaceutical

All of these sectors have been impacted, in one way or another, by recent events. Pharmaceutical, for example, was shaken up by the Covid-19 pandemic, while Advanced Manufacturing continues to evolve to meet ambitious climate targets and technological innovation. 

There are many valuable insights we can extract from our new index. Did you know, for instance, that of the 10 Advanced Manufacturing companies we looked at, the German multinational Siemens was the top recruiter in Europe in 2022? Or that amongst Management Consultancies recruiting Consulting Analysts, one of the most sought after skills was digital transformation? 

The information is endless. Explore the European Skills Transformation Index at your own pace, or contact us below to share your labour market challenges with our team and see how Lightcast can help.