The presentation provides career related insights from jobs.ac.uk covering all academic disciplines. I share some of jobs.ac.uk data to help identify where the jobs are and for whom, how competitive are they, some challenges and some opportunities for researchers within the European jobs market.

1. European Jobs Market
for Researchers.
Insights from
jobs.ac.uk data.
Martina Mallett
Business Development Manager Europe

2. Objective
The following document is a summary of the presentation given at the MCAA General Assembly 2017 in
Salamanca. The aim is to provide some useful career related insights drawn from jobs.ac.uk data and
from our extensive experience in working with universities, and other research intensive organisations,
across Europe.

3. Crossing all academic disciplines
jobs.ac.uk (2017) Top 50 terms featuring in job titles of adverts published by jobs.ac.uk in 2016.
What makes jobs.ac.uk a good source of information about the European jobs market for
researches? The reasons are twofold. Firstly, it is an academic and research careers platform
that spans across all academic disciplines: Social Sciences, Arts & Humanities, Life Sciences,
Physical Sciences, Clinical & Health Research, Business and Economics.
Secondly, jobs.ac.uk may be associated with the UK, however it is, in fact, an international
recruitment portal.

4. Academic Employment Systems
The UK has been identified as one of the most attractive global destinations for researchers.
jobs.ac.uk, as the go-to place for all research and academic jobs in the UK, naturally attracts
that very audience. Open and secure jobs market for academics and researchers within the
UK means that jobs.ac.uk hosts lots of great jobs in one place. Last year we advertised over
50,000 jobs from UK alone! And as such conditions attract people from around the world,
recruiters from around the world, including Europe, use jobs.ac.uk as an international
recruitment partner to help them attract jobseekers.
It is worth noting that the English language is a significant factor in this. As the modus
operandi for researchers across Europe and globally, European organisations that are
recruiting international researchers come to us when they need to fill those English speaking
roles.
These conditions, coupled with the breadth of jobs covering all academic disciplines, make
jobs.ac.uk rich in jobs and, therefore, rich in very useful data for jobseekers.
Afonso, A. (2016) Varieties of Academic Labour Markets in Europe. PS: Political Science & Politics. Volume 49, Issue4.
Open
Systems
Closed
Systems
Highly secure
UK
Netherlands
Scandinavia
Italy
France
Spain
Highly secure
Low security
Switzerland Germany
Low security

5. European Research Area may be defined by common objectives, but it is not the same across
all member states. Different systems of organisations exist and there is no unified jobs
market. Open and transparent recruitment systems, which are promoted within ERA to help
with the international mobility of researchers, are voluntary and its policies open to
interpretation.
This means that how organisations then recruit depends on cultural practices,
research/employment systems and, in part, channels available to them.Within the UK, for the
vast majority of vacancies, universities use their own recruitment website and jobs.ac.uk.
Personal recommendations are still a very powerful and effective tool. Specialist journals are
used for niche roles and print media is used mainly for PR and branding purposes.
How do UK universities recruit?
http://www.jobs.ac.uk/recruiters/why-jobhsacuk/effectiveness-survey/

6. As mentioned earlier, our relationship with the European universities and research intensive
organisations is slightly different since we recruit into their internationally facing roles.
Nevertheless, we work with many organisations across many countries. Our largest advert
volumes come from Ireland, Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands.
The image below reflects the Top 10 European partners for Social Sciences and Arts and
Humanities jobs and should provide an indication as to which disciplines across these
countries are more internationally focused. For instance, the Netherlands and Germany tend
to use us more for the Humanities and Social Sciences jobs in comparison to other disciplines,
whereas in France it is their Business Schools that are more internationally focused.
Our European Partners
Social Sciences and Humanities
jobs.ac.uk 2016. Adverts published on jobs.ac.uk in 2016; Top 10 European countries by volume.

7. This image represents the Top 10 partners for the‘hard sciences’jobs. Within the hard
sciences, Engineering and Technology, which here also includes Computer Sciences,
dominates over other disciplines.
Our European Partners
‘Hard’ Sciences
jobs.ac.uk 2016. Adverts published on jobs.ac.uk in 2016; Top 10 European countries by volume.

8. How competitive are these jobs?
There is still a great deal of talk about oversupply of researchers on the job market in the UK
and across many parts of Europe. Yes, it does seem that the growth in the numbers of
qualified researchers has outpaced the growth in academic and research positions being
created. Last year jobs.ac.uk published just over 70,000 jobs in total, yet each month over a
million visitors come to the site to search for jobs. Competition for jobs seems intense indeed.
On average, research and teaching adverts on jobs.ac.uk receive around 1,000 views each.
This is an increase of our average of 620 views from 5 years ago!
Across disciplines, it seems that Arts and Humanities are certainly the most competitive of all
– with both less opportunities and more applicants.
Competition for jobs
http://www.jobs.ac.uk/media/pdf/recruiters/resources/academic-research-teaching-talent-trends.pdf

9. But it seems that at least to some extent the problem of oversupply of researcher is tied to a)
the expectations of the type of careers researchers can go to, b) knowing what all potential
career paths there are, and c) knowing how to find them. jobs.ac.uk is increasingly working
with commercial and public sector organisations to identify those jobs that our audience can
fill.
Roughly 10% of all UK adverts placed on jobs.ac.uk over the last year represent these two
sectors. Commercial and public sector jobs for researchers are our next big investment area.
For now, though, there is still a significant gap in what is currently offered to jobseekers.
In terms of commercial companies that we do work with, these tend to be biotechnology
companies, many technology start-ups and university research spin-offs.

10. Challenges to accessing jobs
jobs.ac.uk 2016. Comparison of annual salaries of Senor Researchers across European countries.
There is also an issues relating to the pooling of talent around research intensive clusters.
Within the UK these are London, Cambridge and Oxford areas. This pooling of talent then
leaves a demand or undersupply of talent in those areas or regions which are trying to
develop their research systems and catch up.
This is true both intra-nationally and inter-nationally. One of many issues in attracting people
and resources to those regions internationally has to do with pay. Average UK salary for
Senior Researchers varies from £40,000 to £50,000. One recently advertised Senior
Researcher post for an organisation in Lithuania offered a salary of only £5,000 per year!
In feedback from jobs.ac.uk clients within Eastern and Central European countries, the
quantity and the quality of applicants is not on par with those of their Western counterparts.
Considering such disparity in wages, that’s then perhaps not surprising. While these
differences across European jobs market are the potential barriers to people accessing jobs,
they are also great opportunities.

11. And this is the message I wanted to leave you with. I am finding myself working with
organisations that are offering fantastic opportunities, yet they are often overlooked next to
those top destinations in the field. jobs.ac.uk gives such organisations a platform to connect
with our audience of researchers and to promote their positions to them.
Whilst they may not pay as much, or they are not in some well-known cluster, they offer
benefits which go way beyond a good wage. One good example of this is our collaboration
with Bizkaia Talent, an organisation that promotes working and living in the Basque region of
Spain.
They pride themselves with a very good position in the Quality of Life ranking, an excellent
work life balance, excellent education system amongst others. So, next time you visit
jobs.ac.uk and wonder where in the world you might like to go, do look for those hidden
gems!

12. ·obs.ac.uk_...
Greatjobs for brightpeople
Martina MaUett
Business Development Manager Europe
martina@1j obs..ac..uk
� @'Mart·inaDMallett
m! www.Iinked·in .com1/in/marti na-m1allett