IT careers in Luxembourg: key findings of the ADEM 2024 study for the financial sector

In an age of rapid technological advances and digital transformation, it is crucial to understand the changing demands of the labour market. The widening gap between the skills required by employers and those possessed by the workforce is a pressing concern. To address this, the Ministry of Labour, in collaboration with the National Employment Agency (ADEM), has launched sector studies focusing on the IT industry.

Despite the data available, there are still significant gaps in our understanding of the skills in demand and available on the Luxembourg labour market. Sector studies provide detailed information, contributing to a more complete understanding of the skills landscape.

The ABBL participated in the study, as it provides ABBL members with an overview of the evolving skills landscape. As technology reshapes the financial services sector, access to actionable information is vital for talent acquisition strategies and workforce planning.

From key trends to skills gaps, here’s an overview of the findings and their implications for the financial sector.

• IT careers – ADEM 2024 sector study Study of trends in jobs and skills – published in December 2023

Mapping employment in the IT sector in Luxembourg

Over the past decade, Luxembourg’s IT industry has grown exponentially, making Luxembourg the second European country with the highest proportion of IT professionals in its workforce. This transformation reflects the sector’s fundamental role in connecting people, automating processes, promoting innovation and solving complex problems.

The study defines its scope by analysing job vacancies registered with ADEM, focusing on different economic sectors. It mainly includes functions in the information and communication sectors, financial and insurance activities, and specialised scientific and technical activities.

The analysis covers a wide range of IT occupations, reflecting the diversification and specialisation of the sector. Using ADEM data, the study identifies and categorises IT occupations, including roles such as network administrators, business analysts, cloud architects, data scientists and web designers.

Navigating growth: Luxembourg’s financial IT job market

This study provides a targeted analysis of the IT employment market in the financial sector in Luxembourg, highlighting key trends and growth indicators from 2015 to 2022.

Growth trajectory

The financial sector has witnessed a steady increase in IT job vacancies over the specified period, with notable resilience during the pandemic-induced slowdown in 2020.

Vacancies rose from 299 in 2015 to 559 in 2022, indicating a steady upward trajectory and a near doubling over the period analysed.

Sectoral contribution

Vacancies in the financial sector account for around 13% of total vacancies in the IT sector in Luxembourg.

Despite fluctuations, the financial sector has retained a substantial share of IT vacancies, reflecting the sector’s dependence on technology and digital innovation.

Types of contract

Permanent contracts (CDIs) dominated the IT job market in the financial sector, accounting for around 94% of total vacancies.

This preference for permanent employment underlines the sector’s stability and long-term growth prospects, which attracts IT professionals looking for career stability and development opportunities.

Key findings

• Luxembourg’s financial sector remains a key driver of IT job creation, offering stability and growth opportunities despite economic fluctuations.
• The sector’s resilience during difficult times underlines its strategic focus on using technology to drive innovation and efficiency.
• The predominance of permanent contracts reflects the importance of the sector.

IT career trends in Luxembourg’s financial sector

Impact of the Talent Shortage

• Luxembourg’s financial sector is facing exponential growth in its IT manpower requirements, exacerbated by increased international competition and a shortage of local talent.
• The difficulty of recruiting qualified profiles is leading to delays in projects and pressure on prices, despite strong demand from businesses.

Market competitiveness and attractiveness

• The competitiveness of the IT job market in Luxembourg is at stake, with a decline in salary attractiveness and a reduction in the ability to attract talent from the EU, highlighting a growing need to recruit professionals from outside the EU.
• IT providers are vying to attract the best talent, intensifying competition and the focus on candidates’ qualifications and experience.

Technological developments

• Artificial intelligence (AI) is putting pressure on low value-added jobs, particularly in development, and stimulating a search for overqualified talent to meet innovation demands.
• The financial sector remains a major driver of IT demand, particularly for the development of specific solutions and local adaptation, contributing to its growth and competitiveness.

Service and innovation models

• Companies are navigating between ‘build’ (bespoke development) and ‘buy’ (purchase of turnkey solutions) models, with no dominant trend emerging, while re-evaluating the benefits and costs associated with the SAAS (Software as a Service) model and local cloud.
• Technological innovation, including AI, blockchain and cloud, is shaping skills requirements and recruitment strategies, with an increased emphasis on rapid adaptation to market changes.

” Banks are actively seeking cybersecurity specialists to respond to the growing number of online threats. Data and Big Data analysts and managers to process the huge amounts of data generated and feed into strategic decisions. IT project managers to take charge of the many projects launched internally or in cooperation with FinTechs. Specialists in Artificial Intelligence or Machine Learning to automate processes, detect fraud and personalise services. Blockchain professionals to understand and implement solutions based on this technology. Employees to enable them to migrate to cloud-based solutions to improve their agility, flexibility and operational efficiency. IT infrastructure managers to guarantee the availability of online banking services at all times. “- Ananda Kautz, Head of Innovation, Payments and Sustainability, ABBL

Key trends for the financial sector

Societal trends

• Acceleration of the digital revolution due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Increasing digitalisation of public services and in-depth analysis of customer journeys for a better experience.
• Increasing risks of personal data breaches and cyber attacks.

Technological trends

• Advances in new technologies such as blockchain, artificial intelligence and robotics.
• Expansion of computing capacity and telecommunications networks.
• Increased vigilance on the part of management regarding information and data security.

Environmental trends

• Transition to ‘paperless’ to reduce ecological footprint.
• Adoption of more sustainable data centres to offset the high energy consumption of new technologies.

Economic trends

• Increasing outsourcing of IT functions to external service providers and centralisation of IT departments in large groups.
• Body shopping” in IT consulting to meet temporary demand for qualified staff.

Employment trends

• Difficult access for young people and career changers due to high expectations in terms of specialisation and experience.
• Increased competition for talent on a European and global scale with the development of teleworking.

Training trends

• Slow evolution of training provision in relation to needs, slowing skills development.
• Increase in continuing education provision and demand for IT certifications.

Legal/regulatory trends

• Tightening of information security and personal data protection rules, particularly in the financial sector.
• Increasing complexity of IT projects due to growing regulatory requirements.

The most in-demand IT careers

The most in-demand careers are IT development, IT consulting and data analysis, accounting for almost 60% of the jobs advertised. The data also shows a significant labour shortage in almost all IT professions, with a significant gap between the number of positions and the number of potential candidates. In particular, IT development, data management and analysis, administration and IT security have the greatest shortages of candidates.

On the other hand, IT sales and marketing has a slight surplus of candidates.

Requirements for an IT career

Data from job vacancies reported to ADEM provides a wealth of information on the skills sought by Luxembourg companies. Using text mining techniques, skills are extracted and structured, enabling in-depth analysis.

It is clear that to take up an IT job, a specialist higher degree is highly recommended, with an increasing trend towards requiring higher levels of qualifications over time. Language skills are also essential, with a strong demand for English, considered indispensable in the IT field.

IT Skills in Demand

An analysis of technical skills reveals a significant increase in demand in various areas since 2015.

• Programming languages such as Python have seen a dramatic increase from marginal demand to almost one in five job vacancies.
• Agile and DevOps project management skills are also on the rise, underlining the growing importance of collaborative and scalable software development practices.
• In addition, skills in data protection, IT security and cloud technologies have doubled, reflecting growing concerns about cybersecurity and digital transformation.
• Finally, emerging skills such as AI for programming and technology intelligence are becoming increasingly important to meet the evolving needs of the IT sector.

Conclusion for the financial sector

ADEM’s comprehensive analysis offers valuable insights for the financial sector, highlighting significant changes in the skills demanded in the IT job market. The study highlights the growing importance of skills in data science, IT security and cloud technologies, aligned with the need for digital transformation and cybersecurity in the financial sector.

In addition, emerging skills such as AI for programming and technology intelligence offer opportunities to strengthen innovation and operational efficiency. By integrating these trends into their recruitment and talent development strategies, financial sector players can better respond to the challenges and opportunities of the ever-changing technology ecosystem, ensuring their competitive positioning in a dynamic financial landscape

A question?

Contact Andrey Martovoy, Senior Adviser – Innovation & Digital at the ABBL

Contact Andrey Martovoy