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Recruiting Tech Talent: 5 Talent Streams in Europe’s IT, and How to Leverage Them
- Julia Koblischke
- Jul 24
- 6 min read
Updated: Oct 23
The EU’s Digital Decade pledge calls for 20 million ICT specialists by 2030. Yet Eurostat counts only 10.3 million in 2024, leaving a yawning gap of 9.7 million engineers, data scientists, and AI experts. [1]
No surprise, then, that 63 % of European companies say they cannot fill their tech vacancies. [2]
Mid-sized employers feel this pain most acutely: limited brand reach, thinner budgets, and smaller in-house talent-acquisition (TA) teams make it hard to compete with mega-brands.
Yet the talent is entering Europe - you just need to know where to look and how to engage the best tech professionals. This article outlines five key IT talent sources, along with the practical hurdles, strategies, and recruitment solutions for each.
Tech Talent Recruitment: The 5 Key Channels for Building Your IT Team
Europe’s IT and AI workforce is arriving through multiple entry points: home-grown graduates, cross-border EU movers, non-EU visa talent, a resilient CEE near-shore network, and a rising tide of global digital nomads. Let's take a look at the benefits, challenges, and solutions for each stream.
EU Citizens
Europe produces hundreds of thousands of STEM grads a year and is investing heavily in accelerated boot-camps and micro-credential schemes under the EU’s fresh Union of Skills plan. [2]
Europe has nearly doubled its annual STEM graduate count since 2012, climbing from about 910,000 to just under 2 million today [3].
Even though the supply still can’t keep pace with soaring demand for engineers, data scientists, and AI specialists, home-grown graduates are both the most plentiful and the most contested source of IT talent on the market.
• Challenges
Relying solely on the early talent candidate stream probably means that junior density in your company will be high. So, you can expect longer adjustment and productivity-start time. Also, there will be a mentoring load that many lean teams underestimate. That's why you need to pair this talent pipeline with others, which bring more experienced workers.
• Blueprint for Securing Emerging IT Talent
Be present. Sign up as an industry partner on university capstone projects and lock in early-offer rights. You can also co-finance boot-camp scholarships, as graduates generally show above-average loyalty. This way, newcomers will already be familiar with your company culture, projects, and teams. They will hit the ground running.
Cross-Border Movers Inside the EU
Freedom of movement keeps the internal market fluid: 976 000 EU/EFTA citizens changed member state for work in 2024, on top of a standing stock of c. 10 million mobile EU workers. [4]
• Practical hurdles you might face
Surprisingly, relocation logistics turn out to be bigger problems than visas, especially in cities like Dublin, Berlin, or Amsterdam, where housing availability is low.
• How to leverage cross-border recruitment
Offer a hybrid model, or “remote-first, relocate-later” contracts: code from Warsaw this week, be in the Barcelona office in a month.
Partner with relocation and real estate companies to finish the relocation paperwork and get access to the best housing quickly.
Non-EU visa talent: Blue Card & Opportunity Card
The EU issued 89,000 Blue Cards to skilled workers in 2023, with Germany alone accounting for 41,000 [5].
Early 2024 data show the trend is accelerating - Germany issued another 23,000 in just the first half of the year. Blue Cards now represent 36% of all labor migration permits. [6]
Applicants typically need a gross salary of ~€45k+ (standard) or ~€41k+ (shortage occupations), plus a recognized university degree or equivalent experience.
The newer Opportunity Card has delivered 10 148 “job-search” visas in its first year [7]. The applicants must either have a vocational or university degree or qualify using a points system based on professional experience, language skills, and age.
The Blue and Opportunity cards unlock highly qualified or highly experienced talent, something that is always in demand.
• Challenges you may face:
The Blue Card system requires candidates to meet minimum salary and education levels, and the employer must handle additional admin. With Opportunity Cards, the main challenge is visibility: new arrivals aren’t linked to specific employers, and many never convert to job holders.
• How to leverage Blue and Opportunity Card?
Start at the source. Select a target geography (such as Eastern Europe or India, which supplies one-quarter of all Blue and Opportunity Card recipients) - and invest in employer brand and targeted recruitment marketing.
For Blue Card hires, recruit qualified candidates early and offer relocation support. For Opportunity Card holders, use social media and recruitment platforms to position your company as a visible, trusted employer they seek out upon arrival.
Serendi’s international hub network allows us to support your talent outreach online and locally - even physical presence at job fairs.
Near-shore Central & Eastern Europe (CEE)
Countries like Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, and Ukraine have become critical pillars in Europe’s extended tech workforce. Together, they host over one million developers, many with deep expertise in cloud engineering, DevOps, cybersecurity, and AI.
With only a 1–2 hour time difference from most Western European capitals, near-shore teams collaborate in real-time, avoiding the overnight lags of transcontinental remote work.
Companies can achieve up to 40% cost savings compared to in-house Western Europe teams, while preserving quality, cultural alignment, and language fluency (English is widely used across IT teams in the CEE region). [8]
• Challenges you may face
These countries are fast-moving talent hubs. This could mean retention issues in high-demand cities, and that can lead to mid-project turnover.
• Solutions for near-shore hiring
Partner with RPO providers like Serendi that can proactively create and maintain talent communities and pipelines. Choose vendors with proven recruitment strategies, multi-country and multi-lingual operations, allowing quick reallocation of workloads in case of instability.
Global talent & digital nomads
LinkedIn data show a 28 % year-on-year jump in U.S. professionals who now list the EU as their preferred destination [9].
At the same time 18.1 million Americans identify as digital nomads—up 147 % since 2019. [10]
These tech professionals bring niche skills and breakthrough experience, especially in emerging tech fields. For mid-sized companies that can’t match Big Tech salaries, this segment opens doors to world-class talent through non-traditional hiring models.
• Challenges you might face
The biggest challenges are high turnover risk due to nomads' low attachment to location or employer, and difficulty in sourcing candidates.
• Solutions for hiring global talent
Retention starts with the right hire. That means looking beyond technical skills and prioritizing cultural alignment. At Serendi, our team includes 60% psychologists and 20% behavioral experts, enabling us to deliver a candidate experience that consistently results in better fit and lower attrition.
Recruiting Tech Talent: Is there a great opportunity we are missing?
The U.S. tech sector is undergoing a major correction. So far in 2025, 80,103 tech workers have been laid off across 163 companies, including names like Intel, Amazon, and CrowdStrike.
But, while everyone is focused on the tech jobs in IT industry, there might be another opportunity to get the best talent. Namely, over 178,000 government employees have also exited under federal restructuring by July 2025 [11].
These aren't just administrative roles - many were machine learning experts, data managers, cybersecurity specialists, network engineers, and program managers in high-impact sectors like climate change, clean energy, and education.
Interestingly enough - those are skills and expertise that the EU needs.
Frustrated by political shifts and sudden cuts, they bring experience and purpose. Most importantly - they are actively seeking roles where their expertise can still make a difference.
European employers face fewer IT layoff waves of their own (and mostly by US-owned companies) - so now have a rare window to attract U.S. talent. While salary differences remain a barrier, Europe’s work-life balance, healthcare, and cultural appeal offer real leverage in IT recruiting - one that European companies shouldn't miss.
How to Recruit Top Tech Talent: Key Takeaways
Europe’s IT and AI workforce is arriving through multiple entry points, and companies that weave these streams into a single, flexible sourcing plan will out-hire salary-only competitors in the next cycle.
For a mid-sized HR or TA team, however, monitoring talent markets, working on candidate screening, and cross-border incentives, while still delivering day-to-day hiring, is rarely feasible.
Partnering with Serendi fills the gap and solves all challenges in talent acquisition.
Our delivery hubs in the US, Mexico, India, China, and every major European talent hub give you instant access to active and passive IT and AI talent.
Recruitment process outsourcing makes recruiting tech talent easy - we act as an amplifier to your existing TA function, scaling up or down on demand.
Serend’s embedded IT recruiters can help you tap every stream - without adding headcount to your internal TA team.
Do you have 15 minutes? Book a quick consultation and see where your next hire is already waiting.
Hiring across multiple industries? Explore our expert guides:
The True ROI of RPO: How Outsourcing Recruitment Saves Money and Time
Cybersecurity Recruitment Made Easier: How RPO Closes the Talent Gap
Engineering Recruitment in the Age of AI: Hire Smart And Spot Red Flags
Pharma Recruitment in Europe: Fast, Cost-Effective Strategies That Work
Hiring Paradox in Advanced Manufacturing - Why Generic Recruitment Strategies Fail
Finance, Crypto, and Fintech Recruitment in 2026: Solving the Talent Equation
IT specialists recruitment: the definitive challenge
About the Author
Julia Koblischke is a Business Development Manager at Serendi.
She has over 8 years of cross-industry, international experience in talent acquisition and account management, advising our clients globally. Her passion lies in transparent communication, connecting people with the right opportunities, and helping companies achieve growth and success.
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