Barcelona exceeds 135,000 digital professionals in 2025
The city's tech worker base grows 4.85% in 2025, compared to 1.73% overall
BarcelonaThe digital economy continues its expansion in Barcelona, also in the labor market. According to data from the latest Digital talent overview report, the annual study by the Mobile World Capital Barcelona foundation that details the state of the ICT professional network in the country's capital, the Barcelona technology sector has already surpassed 135,000 workers, 6.5% of the city's total employment. Last year, the local ecosystem added nearly 6,300 professionals, a year-on-year increase of 4.85%; triple the rate of the general Barcelona labor market, which grew by 1.73% compared to 2024.
The evolutionary pace of digital work demonstrates, in the words of the entity's director of digital talent, Jordi Arrufí, that Barcelona "is capable of generating and attracting talent specialized in strategic areas for the European digital economy". 2025 was the second year with the most job offers in digital sectors in the city, with 36,460, surpassed only by the nearly 39,600 registered in 2022, in the midst of the post-pandemic technological boom. Compared to pre-COVID-19 crisis figures, the capital of the Principality has more than doubled the demand for ICT professionals.
Currently, according to the digital talent report, established technologies still lead job creation. About a quarter of the registered offers, close to 9,600, correspond to web developer profiles; followed by 2,438 dedicated to application developers, and approximately 2,300 for cloud computing experts. However, artificial intelligence is already beginning to gain traction in the Barcelona market: the city's technology companies have activated more than 1,000 job offers dedicated to profiles specialized in AI. 2025, thus, has been the first year in which a technology considered emerging has surpassed a thousand professionals demanded.
The problem of young people
Growth, however, has not materialized in all population segments. The demand for mid-experience profiles has grown by approximately 22%, while that for seniors has increased by more than 15%. However, the appetite for new hires in the labor market has fallen sharply, with about 27% fewer offers than a year earlier. The cutback is explained, according to MWCapital, by "the use of AI and increasingly sophisticated digital tools." In fact, the report details that the use of artificial intelligence in Barcelona's technology companies has been concentrated in activities that historically served as learning for young professionals, such as writing documentation about developer code (74.2%) or development assistance (70.9%).
Arrufí assures, however, that "opportunities are not yet being lost" for young people due to this phenomenon. "We are anticipating the future," he argued, because "there is still a lot of tension in the market." Nevertheless, he acknowledges that we are moving towards a model that prioritizes experienced workers, but which is "unsustainable" in the medium term: "No one can be mid or seniorwithout having been a junior first". In this regard, he proposes solutions such as a review of technological training, which better prepares students for the roles the market demands, or recovering profiles such as apprentices, which open doors for those newly entering the market.
Start-ups regain momentum
According to the MWCapital foundation's report, practically all market segments have grown in terms of new employment. The segment that has grown most intensely has been that of emerging companies, which have seen a 23% surge in job offers for digital profiles in 2025. They are thus breaking the negative trend they had started in 2024, when they reduced the demand for technology workers by nearly 12%.
According to Arrufí, the recovery is due to the availability of financing, which revived last year despite a limiting economic context. In Spain, as the executive detailed, approximately 1,900 million euros were invested in technological start-ups in 2024, while in 2025 the figure soared to 3,100 million.
Technological consultancies have also seen an improvement in labor demand, more than 16%. In fact, of the 10 most active digital companies in the Barcelona labor market, 7 fall into this category. MWCapital attributes this acceleration to the new demand for artificial intelligence solutions from companies across all sectors, which are accessing consulting services to apply them correctly. On the other hand, technology hubs have moderated demand by more than 5%; a cutback that Arrufí frames within a process of "consolidation" of offices that had surged in the city in recent years.
