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The most in-demand jobs in Spain in 2022

If you’re thinking of relocating to Spain but want to make sure you land a job, here are the 20 most in-demand jobs in the country in 2022 according to LinkedIn. 

Published: 25 January 2022 10:58 CET
Updated: 29 January 2022 09:59 CET
barcelona skyline night
Dreaming of a move to Barcelona? The most in-demand jobs in Spain currently are mainly in tech, but not all. Photo: Wyron A/Unsplash

One of the biggest challenges for people who want to move to Spain is finding the right job which will help them further their careers.

It’s easier for EU nationals as they enjoy the freedom of movement to easily live and work in Spain, whereas for third-country nationals getting a job here depends in many cases on the prospective employer not finding a suitable EU candidate for the position (although Spain has just made it easier for Spanish companies to hire workers from outside of the EU).

READ ALSO: The visas Americans need to live and work in Spain

But who are the job candidates that are most sought-after in Spain and the skills that could ensure that you get the job as a foreigner, even if your Spanish isn’t up to scratch yet or even if you need a work visa for Spain?

International job search engine LinkedIn has published a list of the 20 jobs that according to their data are most in demand in Spain in 2022, with bigger growth over the past five years than any other positions advertised. 

It’s a list that’s dominated by tech-related positions, which reflects how the work market is changing (this is our last list of non-tech related jobs that are in demand in Spain). 

Here is the top 20 list, including the core skills required for each position, the cities in Spain where most of these jobs are and the desired experience for candidates.

Site Reliability Engineer (Ingeniero/a de fiabilidad del sitio)

Required skills: Ansible, Docker, Amazon Web Services (AWS) 

Cities with the most contracts : Madrid, Barcelona, ​​Palma de Mallorca

Average years of prior experience: 9.6

Business development representative (Responsable de desarrollo de negocio)

Required skills: Salesforce, Business Development, Lead Generation

Cities with the most contracts : Barcelona, ​​Madrid, Valencia

Average years of prior experience: 5.6

Cloud Architect (Arquitecto/a de sistemas en la nube)

Most common skills: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Cloud Computing

Cities with the most contracts: Madrid, Barcelona, ​​Alicante

Average years of prior experience: 13 

Machine Learning Engineer (ingeniero de aprendizaje automático)

Required skills: Machine Learning, Computer Vision, Data Science 

Cities with the most contracts: Madrid, Barcelona, ​​Valencia

Average years of experience: 5.2 years

Cybersecurity Specialist (experto/a en ciberseguridad)

Required Skills: Cybersecurity, Ethical Hacking, Information Security

Cities with the most contracts: Madrid, Barcelona, ​​Seville

Average years of experience: 8.3 years 

Software Application Engineer (Ingeniero/a de aplicaciones)

Core Skills: Java, Eclipse, SQL 

Cities with the most contracts: Madrid, Zaragoza, Alicante 

Average years of experience: 5.5 years

Clinical Trial Manager (Responsable de ensayos clínicos)

Required Skills: Good Clinical Practice, Clinical Trial Management System, Oncology

Cities with the most contracts: Madrid, Barcelona, ​​Valencia

Average years of experience: 9.6 years

Infrastructure Engineer (Ingeniero/a de infraestructura)

Required skills: Amazon Web Services, Ansible, Infrastructure

Cities with the most contracts: Madrid, Barcelona, ​​Valencia 

Average years of experience: 9.4 years

Supply Chain Planning Manager (Responsable de cadena de suministro)

Required skills: Supply Chain Management, SAP Products, Production Planning

Cities with the most contracts: Barcelona, ​​Madrid, Toledo 

Average years of experience: 5.8 years

Clinical site specialist 

Required skills: good clinical practice, clinical research, oncology

Cities with the most contracts: Madrid, Barcelona, ​​surroundings of Madrid 

Average years of experience: 9.7 years

Mortgage Loan Officer (Agente hipotecario)

Required skills: Home Loans, Residential Mortgages, Refinancing

Cities with the most contracts: Madrid, Barcelona, ​​Alicante 

Average years of experience: 7.4 years

User Experience Researcher

Required skills: Usability, User Centered Design, Wireframing

Cities with the most contracts: Barcelona, ​​Madrid, La Coruña

Average years of experience: 9.3 years

Back-end Developer (Desarrollador/a back-end)

Required skills: Git, Docker, MongoDB 

Cities with the most contracts: Madrid, Barcelona, ​​Valencia

Average years of experience: 7 years

Sustainability manager (Responsable de sostenibilidad)

Required skills: Sustainable Development, Sustainability Reporting, Consulting

Cities with the most hires: Madrid, Barcelona, ​​Seville

Average years of experience: 6.5 years

Data Engineer (Ingeniero/a de datos)

Required skills: Apache Spark, Scala, Hadoop

Cities with the most hires: Madrid, Barcelona, ​​Seville

Average years of experience: 7.2 years

Strategic Planning Manager (Responsable de planificación estratégica)

Required skills: Business Strategy, Digital Transformation, Management Consulting

Cities with the most hires: Madrid, Barcelona

Average years of experience: 7.8 years

Customer Relationship Management Analyst

Required skills: Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, SQL 

Cities with the most contracts: Madrid, Barcelona, ​​Malaga

Average years of experience: 6 years

Talent Acquisition Specialist (Técnico/a de selección de personal or reculatador)

Required skills: Recruiting, Talent Management, LinkedIn Recruiter

Cities with the most contracts: Madrid, Barcelona, ​​Valencia 

Average years of experience: 5.1 years

Software Account Executive (Ejecutivo/a de cuentas de software)

Required skills : Solution Selling, SaaS, Enterprise Software

Cities with the most contracts: Madrid, Barcelona

Average years of experience : 12.7 years

Mechanical Supervisor (Supervisor/a mecánico/a)

Required skills: Project Engineering, Inspection, AutoCAD

Cities with the most contracts: Huelva, Cáceres, Seville 

Average years of experience: 11.7 years

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PENSIONS

Spain needs 25 million foreign workers to keep its pensions afloat

As the retirement of baby boomers looms, Spain's ageing population and declining birth rate mean the country will need millions of foreign workers to maintain its public pension pot and reinforce the labour market, the Bank of Spain has warned.

Published: 2 May 2024 09:46 CEST
Spain needs 25 million foreign workers to keep its pensions afloat

A recent study by the Bank of Spain estimates that the country will need up to 25 million more immigrant workers by 2053 in order to combat demographic ageing and maintain the ratio of workers to pensioners in order to support the pension system.

Without an influx of more foreign workers or sudden increase in the birth rate in Spain, something that seems very unlikely, experts fear that the growing disparity between working age people and pensioners could put the public pensions system in danger in the medium to long-term.

Like in many countries in the western world, the Spanish population is ageing, with the percentage of the population over 65 years of age predicted to peak in 2050, when almost one in three will be 65 years old or older.

READ ALSO: Spain’s over 65s exceed 20 percent of the population for the first time

By 2035 around one in four (26.0 percent) of Spaniards are expected to be 65 or older. That figure is currently around one fifth of the population.

Furthermore, this is compounded by falling birth rates. Spain’s birth rate hit a record low in 2023, falling to its lowest level since records began, according to INE data. Spain’s fertility rate is the second lowest in the European Union, with Eurostat figures showing there were just 1.19 births per woman in Spain in 2021, compared with 1.13 in Malta and 1.25 in Italy.

If nothing changes, the current ratio of 3.8 people of working age for every pensioner is predicted to plummet to just 2.1 by 2053, according to INE projections.

Maintaining this ratio seems unlikely moving forward, according to the report’s conclusions, something that would put pressure on pensions without significantly increasing social security contributions among working age people.

READ ALSO: Older and more diverse: What Spain’s population will be like in 50 years

The Bank of Spain report noted that “immigrants have high labour participation rates, generally above those of natives – in 2022, 70 percent and 56.5 percent, respectively.”

In three decades’ time, the INE expects Spain to have 14.8 million pensioners, 18 million Spanish nationals of working age and 12 million foreigners. To maintain the ratio, the Bank of Spain forecasts that the working immigrant population would have to rise by more than 25 million to a total of 37 million overall.

Of course, the arrival of 25 million working-age foreigners seems unlikely, if not impossible. To achieve this, around 1 million net migrants would have to enter Spain each year (discounting departures), a figure unprecedented in recent history. To put the figure in context, between 2002 and 2022 net arrivals in Spain reached five million, roughly five times less than what would be necessary to maintain the balance between workers and pensioners.

READ ALSO: ‘Homologación’ – How Spain is ruining the careers of thousands of qualified foreigners

Putting the economics aside, even if such an increase were statistically plausible, such a surge in net migration would be contentious both politically and socially. And it’s not even certain that increased migrant flows would be able to fill the gap in working age people and bolster public pensions: “The capacity of migratory flows to significantly mitigate the process of population ageing is limited,” the Bank of Spain warned in its report. 

What these projections suggest is that Spain’s public pension system will, in coming decades, likely have to be sustained by the contribution of fewer workers overall. This likely means higher social security payments. “Migratory flows have been very dynamic in recent years, but it does not seem likely that they can avoid the process of population ageing… nor completely resolve the imbalances that could arise in the Spanish labour market in the future,” the report stated.

The problem of ageing will also be transferred to the labour market and the types of jobs filled in the future. Increased migratory flows will soften the effect, but the labour characteristics of migrants coming to Spain may not match the job market in the coming decades. The jobs of the future, increasingly digital, will likely require qualifications that many of the migrants expected to arrive in the coming years do not have.

Consequently, the Bank of Spain suggests that “without significant changes in the nature of migratory flows, it does not seem likely that… [they] can completely resolve the mismatches between labour supply and demand that could occur in the coming years in the Spanish labour market.”

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