Startups jobs in the Netherlands are booming
Startups show the highest job growth in the Netherlands
Dutch startups are the #1 job growth engine in the Netherlands according to research from Techleap, Dealroom, CBRE reported in October 2020. Dutch startups account for 109k jobs, 25k of which were created in the last three years. This comes down to more than 8k jobs per year. The growth of startup jobs has shown an average of +8% annual growth.
Startup jobs are most resilient to disruptions (like a global pandemic)
According to this year's Startup Genome Report over 60% of startups have laid off employees or reduced salaries. An average of 33% of jobs were cut at startups. But even though some startups had to let people go, the growth of startup jobs show an incredible resilience to the current global pandemic. During this pandemic startup job growth stayed strong with a +4% increase, higher than any other sector. This is a trend that shows some historical consistency. In and around the period of the great recession (2008 - 2011) jobs in the “Computer Systems Design and Related Services” category was growing by 2.6% per year, while job creation in the overall economy was negative, at -1.2%.
Keep it coming
Not only the statistics show that startup jobs keep on growing. We have listed some real life examples in our blogs like the 10 cool scaleups in the Netherlands to work for. But interestingly, the majority of the jobs do not come from these emerging giants, but rather from companies under 5 years old (57%). That’s why we also gave some examples of 10 young and fast growing Dutch startups that are hiring growth talent.
The majority (57%) of jobs come from companies under 5 years old
Where things stand in 2026
The pattern held. Five years on, the Dutch startup and scaleup ecosystem now employs roughly 135,000 people locally, up from the 109k recorded in 2020, according to Techleap's State of Dutch Tech 2026. Scaleups alone account for about 55,000 tech jobs, roughly 15% of all tech employment, even though they make up under 10% of companies. Hiring at Dutch tech startups and scaleups grew 17% in 2024, and the country now hosts more than 11,000 active tech companies.
If anything, demand now outstrips supply. The Netherlands is projected to need around 300,000 additional tech specialists by 2030, a gap that keeps startup salaries competitive and internal mobility fast. The country also holds on to its international talent unusually well: about 53% of international graduates stay, against an EU average closer to 15-30%.
It is not all one direction, and it is worth being honest about the softer side. Early-stage momentum has cooled: only 104 startups raised more than €100k in 2024, a 23% drop on the year before, and Dutch scaleups increasingly rely on foreign (mostly US) capital as domestic investors retreat from later rounds. The jobs are still growing. The funding that seeds the next wave of them is the part to watch.
Why work at a startup
From a career perspective, startups are a very interesting place to be. When you join a fast growing company, chances are that your career grows together with that company. The company has an increasing impact on the world, therefore there are more things to do in the company and you get more responsibilities. This creates a compounding effect because the more you are pulled out of your comfort zone the more you learn. Next to this, startup jobs are a future-proof career choice because digital services are ever increasing, which means that your digital savviness will be more in-demand in the future.
Why The Netherlands, and why now
The Netherlands is an interesting place to find talent scoring relatively high on talent (7/10) according to the earlier referred Genome report. This means there’s good access to talent (the percentage of engineers and growth employees with at least 2 years of startup experience), the quality of talent is relatively high and talent is affordable. Next to talent, the Netherlands is also one of the best connected countries in terms of local connectedness of ecosystem players and availability of accelerators, incubators and grants (scoring 10/10).
All together, weather you are a hiring startup or talent looking to have a fulfilling career, the Netherlands is a good place to be.
We thank you for reading, and we thank @Techleap @Dealroom @CBRE @StartupGenome for the key insights included in this blog.
