The exhibition only lasts one week, but it becomes a good example of the impact Barcelona has as a pole of attraction for digital talent that, as if it were a magnet, produces a "snowball effect": the city generates more and more digital talent, and this attracts even more talent and technological projects. The result? The province of Barcelona concentrates 92% of the digital talent in Catalonia and 17% in Spain.
The figures, extracted from the Local Economic Report of the Province of Barcelona 2025 prepared jointly by the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce and the Barcelona Provincial Council, conclude that in 2024 the ICT sector in the province of Barcelona reached 130,485 affiliations to Social Security, almost double that in 2012. In fact, the weight of the sector in the labor market accounts for almost 5% of all occupations.
Therefore, the concentration of the technological fabric in Barcelona and its specialization increases. In terms of companies, in fact, there are 5,037 technology companies operating in the 13 Barcelona regions, and they represent 2.8% of the entire business fabric. And these companies, moreover, have an average of 23 workers, when in 2012 they had 14, an evolution that indicates a consolidation and maturation of the sector, with larger companies. In addition, also according to data from the Chamber, of the total number of people working in the ICT sector, 89% are salaried and between 10% and 11% are self-employed.
The distribution by regions, as expected, also tends towards concentration in the Barcelona epicenter, both in employment and in the volume of ICT companies: 72.9% of Social Security affiliations (95,145 affiliations) are located in Barcelonès.
They are followed by Vallès Occidental and Baix Llobregat, which concentrate 11.5% and 7.6% of the province's ICT employment, respectively. However, it is not only due to proximity to Barcelona, but because both regions "have research centers and universities, and other key infrastructures to generate around them technological entrepreneurship projects and spin-offs," said economist Carme Poveda, director of Economic Analysis at the Chamber, in the presentation of the report.
This concentration, however, is not something that worries the Chamber's analysts. In fact, according to its president, Josep Santacreu, "both the biomedical sector and the ICT sector are sectors that worldwide tend to be concentrated in a few cities".
These figures position Barcelona as one of Europe's main technological hubs, combining a high concentration of digital talent, an expanding innovation and research ecosystem, and a strategic position on the world map. "It is the result of a set of decisions made over time, and a clear commitment to having a great research system in universities, or a Barcelona Supercomputing Center, which allows us to receive and host companies from the ICT sector and the biomedical field from all over the world," says Santacreu.
The other side of the coin: the decline of certain sectors (due to AI)
While technology has become a driver of job creation in the province of Barcelona, it has also caused job losses in some impacted subsectors, precisely, by technology. "These are mainly professions that can be easily replaced by an AI, by an algorithm, because perhaps they involve repetitive tasks, low added value, or first jobs," Poveda pointed out.
Specifically, the subsectors that have registered the greatest job losses during 2025 are administrative activities in offices (with 2,743 fewer affiliations to Social Security) and motor vehicle manufacturing, with 867 fewer affiliations.
Barcelona, land of technological hubs
Another example of the snowball effect experienced by the technological sector in the province of Barcelona is the increase in multinational companies that have installed their technological development centers in the city. Specifically, Barcelona already concentrates a total of 160 international technology hubs, which currently generate more than 34,800 jobs.
The forecast, furthermore, is that this growth will be maintained and strengthened over the coming years. In fact, if technology centers already bill more than 2.8 billion euros, with an average of 18 million per hub, the projection made by Mobile World Capital is that billing will exceed 3.6 billion euros in 2026, a 26% increase. Likewise, if they currently employ 34,800 workers, the forecast is that by 2026, 42,700 jobs will be reached. Among the most demanded profiles by these technology centers are software engineers, consultants, and cybersecurity analysts.
And the hubs, like the technology sector, also share the trend of concentration towards the province of Barcelona and, specifically, the Barcelonès region. In Barcelona, 76% of the 160 hubs are located, with almost half concentrated in 22@. Other cities in the metropolitan area (which concentrates 19% of the total) also stand out, such as Sant Cugat del Vallès, Cornellà de Llobregat, or L'Hospitalet de Llobregat.
With this concentration of talent, companies, and investment, Barcelona consolidates its role as a technological epicenter of Southern Europe; a "snowball effect" that continues to grow, driven by the constant arrival of new projects and digital professionals, and which means it concentrates 92% of Catalonia's digital talent and 17% of Spain's.
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