Open Source Pros Confident in Europe Job Market

Open source careers may be even more in demand and rewarding in Europe than the rest of the world, according to new data from the 2016 Open Source Jobs Report released today by The Linux Foundation and Dice. European open source pros are more confident in the job market, get more incentives from employers, and more calls from recruiters than their counterparts worldwide, according to the data.

The full report, released earlier this year, analyzed trends for open source careers and the motivations of professionals in the industry. Now, the data have been broken down to focus specifically on responses from more than 1,000 open source professionals in Europe, and how they compare to respondents from around the world.

“European technology professionals, government organizations and corporations have long embraced open source,” said Jim Zemlin, executive director at The Linux Foundation, in a press release. “The impressive levels of adoption of and respect for open source clearly have translated into more demand for qualified open source professionals, providing strong opportunities for developers, DevOps professionals, and others.”

Europeans are more confident than their global counterparts in the open source job market, according to the data. Sixty percent of open source pros in Europe believe it would be fairly or very easy to find a new position this year, as opposed to only 50 percent elsewhere in the world.

Employers in Europe are also offering more incentives to hold onto staff. Forty percent of European open source professionals report that in the past year they have received a raise, 27 percent report improved work-life balance, and 24 percent report more flexible schedules. This compares to 31 percent globally reporting raises, and 20 percent globally reporting either a better work-life balance or more flexible work schedules. Overall, only 26 percent of Europeans stated their employer had offered them no new incentives this year, compared to 33 percent globally.

And recruiters are more active in seeking open source talent in Europe. 50 percent of Europeans reported receiving more than 10 calls from recruiters in the six months prior to the survey, while only 22 percent of respondents worldwide reported that many calls. While worldwide 27 percent of respondents received no calls from recruiters, only five percent of Europeans said the same.

Application development and DevOps skills are in high demand in Europe, similar to the rest of the world. Only in Europe, app development was in higher demand with 23 percent of European open source professionals reporting it as the most in-demand skill, compared with 11 percent of professionals elsewhere.  DevOps was the highest in-demand skill worldwide, at 13 percent, but second among Europeans at 12 percent.

Regardless of where they live in the world, however, all open source professionals said they enjoy working on interesting projects more than anything. Thirty-four percent in Europe, compared with 31 percent globally, agreed this was the best thing about their jobs. However, while respondents around the world said the next best things were working with cutting-edge technology (18 percent) and collaboration with a global community (17 percent), European professionals selected job opportunities second at 17 percent, followed by both cutting-edge technologies and collaboration tied at 16 percent each. Five percent of European respondents said money and perks were the best part of their job, more than double the two percent who chose this response worldwide.

For more information about the worldwide open source jobs market, download the free 2016 Open Source Jobs Report.