The guide
4
The cities inside them
A country is not one job market. These are the cities the work actually clusters in. Each with its honest catch and the real way in, including the ones at home.
38 cities in 17 countries, home region first. A city with only good news listed would be an advert, so every one of these carries its catch.
Showing: Every field
Narrow the list
Showing 38 cities.
Kazakhstan
Central Asia & the Caucasus- AlmatyKazakhstan's business and startup centre. Most international companies put their local office here, and the country's strongest universities and creative scene are here too.The catch & the way in
- AstanaGovernment, state companies and Astana Hub, the tech park where most of the country's startup programmes and grants are run.The catch & the way in
Georgia
Central Asia & the CaucasusGermany
Europe- BerlinEurope's largest startup scene outside London, where English-only tech jobs are normal, alongside a deep art, music and film culture.The catch & the way in
- MunichGermany's engineering heartland: cars, aerospace, industrial software and two of the country's strongest technical universities in one city.The catch & the way in
Poland
Europe- WarsawThe nearest big EU tech market to Central Asia, with a huge software and shared-services sector, and an existing community of students from the CIS.The catch & the way in
- KrakówPoland's second technology centre and its cultural capital: a dense student city where global companies run engineering and shared-services offices.The catch & the way in
Italy
Europe- MilanThe design and fashion capital of Europe, and Italy's financial centre. Politecnico di Milano is one of the strongest design and architecture schools anywhere.The catch & the way in
- RomeItaly's capital and its largest university city, where heritage, medicine, law and the UN's food agencies sit in the same place.The catch & the way in
Switzerland
Europe- ZurichETH plus the deep-tech and quantitative finance built around it, and the largest concentration of research money and technical employers in the German-speaking world.The catch & the way in
- LausanneEPFL on Lake Geneva: robotics, life sciences and computer science on one campus, in an environment that runs in English further down than Zurich's does.The catch & the way in
- GenevaThe world's densest concentration of international organisations: the UN, the WHO, the Red Cross, the trade and health bodies. With the universities and NGOs that feed them.The catch & the way in
Netherlands
Europe- AmsterdamThe Dutch business and technology centre, where English-taught degrees and English-speaking workplaces are the norm rather than the exception.The catch & the way in
- EindhovenThe Brainport region, the heart of Europe's semiconductor and precision-engineering supply chain, with the equipment makers, chip designers and their suppliers inside half an hour of each other.The catch & the way in
United Kingdom
Europe- LondonEurope's biggest finance and legal centre, with a creative and media industry to match.The catch & the way in
- ManchesterThe largest UK student city outside London: a big research university, a growing technology and media cluster, and living costs a long way below the capital's.The catch & the way in
UAE
Middle East & Türkiye- DubaiA fast-growing corporate and startup market three hours from Central Asia, with branch campuses of Western universities on the ground and the region's densest concentration of private employers.The catch & the way in
- Abu DhabiThe capital, and the country's research and energy centre: government bodies, sovereign funds and the two universities that admit internationally with real money behind them.The catch & the way in
Türkiye
Middle East & Türkiye- IstanbulThe bridge market between Europe and Asia, with large manufacturing, textile and design industries and a serious film and music scene.The catch & the way in
- AnkaraTürkiye's capital and the home of its strongest technical universities, its defence and aerospace industry and its entire public sector.The catch & the way in
South Korea
Asia-Pacific- SeoulElectronics, automotive and battery R&D at Samsung/SK/Hyundai scale, plus games and entertainment industries that export worldwide.The catch & the way in
- DaejeonKorea's research city: KAIST and the Daedeok cluster of government institutes and corporate laboratories in one place, an hour from Seoul.The catch & the way in
Japan
Asia-Pacific- TokyoRobotics, precision manufacturing and materials research, and the world's animation and games industry.The catch & the way in
- OsakaJapan's industrial second city: heavy engineering, electronics, materials and pharmaceuticals, with the manufacturers that actually hire for them headquartered in the region.The catch & the way in
- KyotoA research city rather than an industrial one: one of Asia's strongest universities, a basic-science culture that has produced a long line of Nobel laureates, and the country's traditional crafts and design still practised commercially.The catch & the way in
Singapore
Asia-PacificHong Kong SAR
Asia-PacificChina
Asia-Pacific- ShenzhenThe hardware capital of the world. A prototype that takes months elsewhere takes days here, because every supplier, component market and small factory you need sits in the same city.The catch & the way in
- BeijingChina's political, academic and research capital: its two strongest universities, the state research institutes, and the head offices that deal with them.The catch & the way in
- ShanghaiChina's financial and commercial centre, with the country's most international universities and the largest concentration of foreign companies in it.The catch & the way in
United States
North America- BostonThe densest concentration of universities, teaching hospitals and biotech companies on earth. If you want research, this is the deep end.The catch & the way in
- San Francisco Bay AreaThe centre of the software industry and of startup funding. The concentration of people who have built things at scale is the actual product here.The catch & the way in
- New YorkFinance, media, publishing and the art market in one place. The density is the reason people put up with the price.The catch & the way in
- SeattleThe densest concentration of large software employers outside the Bay Area, with cloud computing and its whole supply chain built around two of them.The catch & the way in
Canada
North America- TorontoCanada's largest job market by a distance: banking and insurance, a substantial technology sector, and the hospital and research network that comes with the country's biggest city.The catch & the way in
- WaterlooA university town organised around one idea: co-op, where paid work terms alternate with study terms, so a software or engineering degree here ends with about two years of real employment already on the record.The catch & the way in
- VancouverCanada's Pacific technology and film centre, close enough to Seattle that American companies staff engineering offices here when they can't get visas.The catch & the way in
- MontrealThe cheapest big city in North America for a student, with two strong English-language universities, a serious artificial-intelligence research community, and a games and animation industry.The catch & the way in