1. Global Airport Operation

2023-2024 Revenue Growth: 16.2%

The Global Airport Operation industry has experienced complex operating conditions over the five years to 2021. Rising levels of airline passenger traffic through much of the period enabled airports to earn significant revenue through passenger charges and services provided directly to airlines. At the same time, improving economic conditions increased corporate profit and fueled global manufacturing activity, causing airlines to operate more flights to transport greater quantities of cargo. However, the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic completely disrupted the industry over 2020, causing revenue losses of more than 50.0% in that year alone.

2. Global Hotels & Resorts

2023-2024 Revenue Growth: 11.8%

Over the five years to 2021, the Global Hotels and Resorts industry is anticipated to experience declining revenue. Initially, strong growth between 2016 and 2019 occurred as both consumers and businesses became more confident about their finances and spent more liberally on luxuries, including travel. This culminated in a substantial increase in both travel rates and hotel room and occupancy rates, two indicators of a hotel's performance. Global tourist arrivals were also steadily increasing between 2016 and 2019 until a drastic drop in 2020 due to the global spread of COVID-19 (coronavirus).

3. Global Travel Agency Services

2023-2024 Revenue Growth: 11.8%

The Global Travel Agency Services industry has experienced revenue decline over the five years to 2021, all while the industry's core services dramatically changed due to consumers using online channels to research and book travel. Online booking agents now play a much larger role within the industry, alongside traditional brick-and-mortar travel agencies. International tourism grew strongly prior to the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic, which is expected to severely cut into revenue over 2020, followed by a rebound of 35.1% in 2021 as the economy returns to normal. Overall, industry revenue is expected to shrink an annualized 3.0% to $290.5 billion.

4. Global Tourism

2023-2024 Revenue Growth: 10.8%

The Global Tourism industry is expected to decrease an annualized 4.3% to $1.3 trillion over the five years to 2021. Global tourism has performed well during most of the five-year period, with emerging economies continuing to stimulate growth. Moreover, countries in Asia and South America have experienced robust growth in per capita income, which has enabled consumers in these regions to take overseas trips in increasing numbers. However, due to the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic, industry revenue is expected to decline nearly 50.0% in 2020. The global outbreak is expected to have an enormous effect on all tourism-related industries.

5. Global Airlines

2023-2024 Revenue Growth: 7.7%

Despite rising levels of airborne passenger and cargo traffic through much of the period, revenue for the Global Airlines industry has declined over the five years to 2021 as volatile fuel prices and growing competition, as well as the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic, have placed downward pressure on airline ticket prices and freight shipping rates. At the same time, recent growth in global per capita income, in addition to other solid macroeconomic indicators, fueled demand for airline passenger transportation prior to the pandemic.

6. Global Casinos & Online Gambling

2023-2024 Revenue Growth: 6.8%

Over the five years to 2021, the center of the Global Casinos and Online Gambling industry has shifted from the United States, specifically Las Vegas and Atlantic City, to China, more specifically, Macau. A wave of recent casino openings in Macau has propelled this shift. As of 2021, there were 50 casinos located on the island. Additionally, casino openings in other parts of Asia are expected over the five years to 2026. Two mega casino developments in Singapore already rival casinos in Las Vegas, and Japan recently legalized casinos, raising the potential for billions of dollars in new investment.

7. Global Commercial Aircraft Manufacturing

2023-2024 Revenue Growth: 6.3%

The Global Commercial Aircraft Manufacturing industry is expected to decline over the five years to 2021. Industry operators design, manufacture, overhaul and rebuild planes, helicopters, aircraft engines and various aircraft components and subsystems for the commercial and civil markets. The industry primarily depends on downstream demand from airlines, which make up most major markets for operators. The global rise in disposable income levels has driven major growth in demand for air travel during most of the period, although investment in new aircraft has fallen as many airlines have been using older aircraft. Additionally, the spread of COVID-19 (coronavirus).

8. Global Deep-Sea, Coastal & Inland Water Transportation

2023-2024 Revenue Growth: 6.2%

The Global Deep-Sea, Coastal and Inland Water Transportation industry, which transports cargo and passengers across the world's waterways, has experienced strong growth over most of the five years to 2021. Rising global per capita income and increased production activity among the world's most developed economies have increased demand for industry services, though the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic is forecast to severely cut into demand in 2020. These strong market conditions have offset an excess of maritime carrying capacity relative to downstream demand, which has constrained international freight rates and hindered industry growth.

9. Global Oil & Gas Exploration & Production

2023-2024 Revenue Growth: 5.7%

Operators in the Global Oil and Gas Exploration and Production industry find and extract crude oil and natural gas from oil and gas reserves across the world. Over the five years to 2022, the prices of crude oil and natural gas have fluctuated despite steady growth in production, which has caused revenue fluctuations. Slowing global demand alongside continually rising supply caused prices to plummet prior to the period and in 2020, before rapid growth in both 2021 and 2022. Overall, industry revenue is forecast to grow an annualized 12.3% to $5.0 trillion over the five years to 2022.

10. Global Reinsurance Carriers

2023-2024 Revenue Growth: 5.7%

The Global Reinsurance Carriers industry has encountered significant challenges over the five years to 2021. Some challenges include an operating landscape consisting of a soft pricing cycle, low interest rates, an increased occurrence of natural disasters and a global pandemic. All of these factors have contributed to the industry's poor performance. As a result, industry revenue is expected to decline at an annualized rate of 1.6% to $228.1 billion over the five years to 2021, including a decline of 5.5% in 2021 alone. This decrease in 2021 can be mainly attributed to the ongoing COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic.

Written by Ibisworld

International students continue to broaden the range of countries they consider as possible study abroad destinations. This development gained speed during the pandemic, when some countries and institutions offered only online and/or remote learning for longer than others. Even with growing demand for online and hybrid delivery, many students preferred the option of in-person study and would switch destinations to learn in this way.

The “switching” trend has contributed to a different competitive landscape in international education. For example, Canada gained share it might not have had the US and especially Australia opened their borders earlier. China, New Zealand, and Japan lost share because of their prolonged border closures. The UK has become more popular as a result of its new, more generous post-study work rights.

But overall, it is the rest of Europe that has become more attractive to international students from all over the world.

Europe: Student mix changes from country to country

Despite their regional proximity, different European countries have remarkably different student mixes than each other. Consider the following table showing top markets for the UK, France, and Germany.

The UK saw its international student enrolments climb by 9% in 2020/21 over the previous year to 605,130. Two of the UK’s top markets are in South Asia (Pakistan and India) and two are in East Asia (China and Hong Kong). The UK draws more heavily from Europe for its top ten sending markets than do France or Germany, and it is also seeing substantial growth in Nigerian enrolments over the past two years.

France, which now hosts around 370,000 international students, has only one Asian country in its top tier (China), and not surprisingly attracts large numbers of students from African francophone countries.

In Germany, which has seen foreign enrolments rising throughout the pandemic to about 330,000, Asian representation extends past China and India to the Middle East (Iran and Syria) as well as Russia. Germany’s top ten list may be the most eclectic of the three countries in terms of its regional diversity with significant numbers of students from Asia, the Middle East, Russia, Europe, and Africa choosing German universities.

Italy

As in Germany, Italy’s international student mix is also quite varied – the following chart shows top sending markets for 2019/20. In total, Italian universities enrolled close to 100,000 international students in 2020/21.

Source: Statista

Spain

In Spain, meanwhile, Latin America is a major recruitment focus for universities given the Spanish language affinity between the two regions. In 2019/20, 208,370 foreign students were in Spanish universities – up 12% from 185,145 two years earlier. The following map shows top student markets for Spain.

Leading sending markets for Spain. Source: Studying in Spain

The Netherlands

The Netherlands hosted 12% more international students in 2021/22 than in the previous year for a total of 115,070 according to a new report published by Nuffic, the Dutch organisation for internationalisation in education. Top markets for Dutch universities are mostly European and include:

• Germany: 24,500
• Italy: 7,200
• China: 5,300
• Belgium: 4,797
• Spain (4,687)
• Bulgaria (4,607)
• France (4,294)
• Greece (3,862)
• Poland (3,554)
• India (3,363)

Current demand factors

European countries other than the UK are seeing increased interest from within the region since Brexit terms ended EU students’ ability to access “home fee status.” Faced with the prospect of paying the same fees as non-EU students for UK higher education, European students are looking around within their own region and finding both highly ranked institutions and relatively attractive tuition fees.

Meanwhile, African and Asian students, who might otherwise have chosen China, Russia, or Ukraine as their top destinations, now find themselves unable or unwilling to go to those countries because China’s borders remain shut and because of Russia’s war on Ukraine. Other destinations within Europe are quickly becoming more popular for African and Asian students as a result – not the least because of more affordable tuition at many European universities relative to what students would pay in other leading study destinations, such as Canada or the United States.

Written by ICEF GmbH

Like their global peers, Europeans are thinking more about quitting, exacerbating a high job vacancy rate and a skills gap. New research shows how companies can emphasize “people factors” that workers say they need.

How do companies keep their current workforces happy while drawing the best people to join them? Talent leaders have been asking that question forever, of course, but the answers have grown much more complex since the COVID-19 pandemic set off an employee exodus that has shaken organizations across the globe.

McKinsey has analyzed this Great Attrition talent trend in depth, showing why people began quitting in droves and how companies, caught unaware, could respond. We updated our research earlier this year, finding that workers were not only still quitting but also switching roles and industries, in what we dubbed the Great Renegotiation. We offered ideas for how organizations could look to different employee groups to help fill jobs.

Now, we turn to Europe, where the destabilizing war in Ukraine, rising inflation, and growing fears of hiring freezes and job losses have created a difficult set of conditions for companies. We wanted to know if the talent trends we’ve followed for the past two years in the United States and other countries are having a similar effect in Europe. The answer is a resounding yes. Companies can’t get the people they need, and they are losing the workers they already have, while falling behind in areas such as technology and innovation that affect the region’s long-term competitiveness.

About the research

Our new analysis, which includes a survey of more than 16,000 respondents in nine European countries, shows that fully one-third of respondents say that they expect to quit their jobs in the next three to six months (see sidebar, “About the research”). While that slice of the workforce is lower than the 40 percent in our global survey from April,4 it is a remarkably high churn rate for Europe, where labor protections and cultural factors—not to mention a likely economic slowdown—tend to favor remaining in a job. Companies that believe attrition is a problem limited to the United States should understand that one in three of their workers may quit over the near term.

Yet high attrition is just one of the challenges facing European employers. The job vacancy rate has almost doubled, to 3 percent in June 2022, from 1.6 percent in June 2020,5 making it harder for companies to fill open positions. Organizations also face a skills gap across industries, as well as a high number of retirees who are unlikely to return to the workforce.

At the same time, European employers have an opportunity to sharpen their value proposition. They can use this moment to address chronic, systemic talent issues by offering adequate compensation, career advancement, and caring leaders, while also focusing on more recent employee needs born of the pandemic. In this article, we analyze our new data to show how companies can retain those who are considering leaving, provide support to turn “quiet quitters” into more engaged employees, and recruit top talent more effectively to build a productive workforce that can deliver in times of radical uncertainty.

The European talent landscape: Top reasons for leaving reflect shifting employee values

Our survey revealed a consistent rate of attrition, at about a third of respondents. The outlier was Poland, where half the people say that they are at least somewhat likely to leave their jobs in the next three to six months (Exhibit 1).6

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That this many workers are considering leaving revealed a dramatic level of attrition for Europe, where labor protections are more extensive than in other countries. Retirement, too, is often a milestone to look forward to because of pensions and a robust social safety net. Our survey showed that 24 percent of Europeans have retired (early or of natural age) in the past seven years. In contrast with the United States, retirees in Europe aren’t as interested in returning to work for the right offer. When they do retire, they’re more likely to be gone for good7—reducing the pool of potential workers for European employers.

This large number of people eyeing the exits is not much lower than the 40 percent in our earlier sample of six countries. In fact, when comparing vastly different labor markets and staggered time frames—April for the global data and September for Europe—and factoring in worsening economic conditions, we see similar attrition rates. That’s not a favorable environment for European companies looking to keep and attract workers.

Despite the structural and perceived differences in the European labor market, we unexpectedly found that the top three reasons Europeans give for leaving their jobs are similar to those of our global sample: inadequate compensation, lack of career development and advancement, and uncaring and uninspiring leaders (Exhibit 2).

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Fair compensation and having a clear career path are perennial top motivators for workers in any job. We consider compensation table stakes because it’s enough to buy you a seat at the table but not enough to give you a winning hand. A lack of caring leaders, also a consistent reason for why people across countries quit their jobs, has grown in importance since the pandemic began. The similarities in top quitting factors across regions and time periods show that the pandemic has normalized these employee attitudes across segments of workers.

People across age groups and experience levels are putting more emphasis on whether these factors in combination are enough to make them want to stay at an organization for the long term. They need tangible and consistent proof that they have a positive future—in other words, the whole package: compensation, caring leaders, advancement. The fact that a large number of Europeans are saying, “I need a job, but I don’t need your job,” is a clear sign of this new emphasis.

Meanwhile, other factors have grown in importance for European respondents since the pandemic began, particularly those related to unreliable and unsupportive people at work, as well as a noninclusive and unwelcoming community.

The emphasis on these relational “people factors” marks a notable mindset shift among European workers. More than ever, employees say that they need to feel engaged and supported in an inclusive and welcoming environment. Unsustainable work expectations and a lack of support for employee well-being in particular align with rates of employee burnout that McKinsey research shows are at all-time highs.8

We also found that the reasons employees are considering changing jobs are remarkably consistent across European countries. The top two factors in every country are inadequate compensation and insufficient career advancement. But relational factors also rank highly, including having uncaring and uninspiring leaders and unsupportive coworkers.

Focus on the whole workforce (the happy, the unhappy, and the in-between)

Most Europeans in our sample say that they intend to stay on the job, and their motivations shade differently than those of their exiting counterparts. Compensation is a top reason here as well, but it is more of a hygiene factor than anything else. Motivators include flexibility, meaningful work, and supportive coworkers—once again, an endorsement of factors that have grown in importance for Europeans during the pandemic.

People stay in a job for the opposite reasons than they leave it: because they are rewarded adequately, their needs for advancement and skill building are met, and they see a future for themselves. What sets Europeans apart, though, is the degree to which they prize a safe workplace environment; that factor is in the top three for Europeans, while it is eighth overall for the global group (Exhibit 3). Reasons for that include the fact that many COVID-19 restrictions ended over the summer, leading employees to worry about how safe they would be back in the office and whether they wanted to be back at all.

Exhibit 3

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Companies must continue to deliver on flexibility if they want to retain people who have not yet indicated a willingness to leave. Throughout the pandemic, employees—ranging from working parents to younger folks just starting out to workers nearing retirement age—all say that they want more control over their working hours so that they can better balance life and career.9

This raises a crucial point: in crafting an alluring employee experience, European organizations have to avoid falling into the trap of focusing solely on the workers who are unhappy enough to quit over the short term. Of course, it’s essential to retain them, but companies also need to be sure that the majority who aren’t indicating that they are leaving don’t move into that category.

In other words, leaders have to care about retaining talent before they can start to think about those who are walking out the door. Making the organization sticky, which we discuss below, is part of that active investment in the entire workforce.

The sound of ‘quiet quitting’

To help assess all their workers, companies can group their employees in four broad categories—those who are happy with their job but are considering better options, those leaving because they dislike their job, those staying because they’re happy, and those who are passively staying but who don’t really want to be there. This last group consists of “quiet quitters,” or members of the employed-yet-disengaged workforce.10

European employers, like organizations everywhere now, face the problem of workers who leave—and workers who stay but who might act like they have already left. Our research shows that in Europe, the majority (79 percent) of those reporting low levels of engagement or support factors are likely to leave. However, a small but significant portion (21 percent) of those reporting low levels of engagement or support factors are planning to stay at their jobs. Although these employees aren’t quitting, they are likely to become disengaged from their work, which could manifest as withdrawal from or neglect of their duties.

If we do the math, with one-third leaving and one-fifth of those who remain falling into the ranks of those not necessarily working to pace, that adds up to about 44 percent of the workforce. Clearly, that number of dissatisfied employees is not sustainable in a healthy organization.

Some employers believe that quiet quitting is just a phase, but there are two reasons to discount that. One is that despite the trendy name, quiet quitters have been around forever—as people whose level of engagement is below what managers might want. The other is that in a predicted economic downturn, when companies are often forced to turn to hiring freezes or job cuts, they will need the workforce that remains to be that much more productive.

Quiet quitting is not just an individual problem, it’s a mutual responsibility between the employee who is disengaged and the organization that isn’t offering enough support. Both higher engagement and higher support are needed to solve this problem.

An overwhelming majority of employees who report high levels of engagement factors (such as finding meaning in their work) and support factors (such as reliable and supportive people at work) are likely to stay at their jobs and be productive in them (Exhibit 4).

The (new) value system: Emphasize personal development and recognition to reward workers

Europe’s labor market is unique, with stronger worker protections, more extensive pension offerings, and longer parental leaves, to name but a few examples that benefit employees—and society writ large. Culturally, workers in this region don’t leave their jobs as often as those in the United States and other countries do.

However, with an aging population and a darkening economic picture, European employers face a complex environment in which to operate. This calls for more creative solutions. Companies can draw inspiration from the way other organizations, even those in other regions, are attempting to solve the problem that attrition brings. They can find novel ways to attract younger people to jobs and keep the workers they have feeling more engaged and productive.

Here are five ways that European companies can be proactive about retention, reinforce a healthy working environment, and look beyond traditional recruitment pools.

Address the attrition

The first step is to turn inward. Companies should take stock of the attrition they have already experienced and move to reduce further quitting by addressing what is motivating their employees. Our European data shows that the reasons people have left a job and why they plan to leave are the same, so companies can get ahead of the next wave of attrition by understanding why others have already left. Employers should consider doubling down on providing adequate total compensation packages, investing in employees’ development, and providing meaningful advancement opportunities, while showing more caring and inspiring day-to-day and strategic leadership.

Don’t overlook ‘the others’

When companies focus mostly on attrition and attraction, they tend to overlook the need to actively support workers who are staying. Sticky companies anticipate and address employees’ concerns. They ask people what they need to be successful in their roles—and they listen to the answers. They push people to grow in their jobs and encourage a growth mindset throughout the organization. Based on feedback, these companies might innovate jobs, teams, or hiring practices. They are not afraid to provide the flexibility that employees need to create a work–life balance that helps keep workers engaged and productive. These cultural factors help make a company more attractive to join and, ideally, provide more incentives for employees to stay and remain engaged. They can also reengage those who are quietly quitting.

Reward loyalty by building capabilities

Career advancement is a top priority for European workers. A company that rewards its employees by investing in their development reduces their incentive to look elsewhere while also increasing overall engagement. With that in mind, leaders can start by rewarding those who are already inside the company with career development and advancement opportunities. This investment in the workforce is based on gratitude and trust, highlighting that past work is valued and that the company believes in their employees’ ability to deliver the future work that builds value. Then, leaders can look outside the company to deliberately find the talent that they still need. In the broader context, Europe is experiencing a widening gap in technology, innovation, and corporate performance compared with other regions. With recent headlines of job losses in the technology sector, companies that need to expand their tech expertise could look to those who are newly available. However, companies should also focus on using the right levers to prevent those potential hires from going to a nontraditional job, or worse, to the competition.

Rethink the corporate culture

Since the start of the pandemic, organizations have been striving to help employees who are burned out. However, it’s crucial to focus on affirmative behaviors so that burnout doesn’t become a problem to begin with. Once it takes hold, even the most well-intentioned remediation efforts (or yoga classes) won’t fix the problem. As our survey data shows, European workers now emphasize other factors when it comes to a satisfying employee experience. They want more workplace flexibility and a physically and psychologically safe workplace.11 McKinsey research shows that caring managers can also make a huge difference in engagement by reaching out more frequently and honing in on what excites employees and gives them a sense of purpose.

Think outside the (recruitment) box

The existing talent pools of traditional workers in an aging market are not sufficient to replenish those who have retired. European organizations will need to go after those who have left the traditional workforce, including people who are self-employed, those in the gig economy or not currently in full-time corporate jobs, younger people just entering the workforce, and those who are considering retirement. Because these groups emphasize different factors (with older workers wanting more caring leaders and younger people valuing strong support networks), companies must target these groups differently. And while these pools of workers may be smaller in Europe than they are in the United States, for example, they’re out there, and companies can go get them.

The European workforce is not immune to the attrition trend we’ve seen sweep across countries over the past several years. The mindsets of European employees have changed since the pandemic began, and many are no longer willing to stay at organizations that don’t value their contributions or offer a future that excites them. Now more than ever, companies should demonstrate a commitment that is both widespread and targeted to individuals—a commitment that is core to their health and future growth.

Written by Mckinsey

While the college-educated STEM workforce had almost reached gender parity in 2019, with a female share of 44%, large gender gaps remain between types of STEM jobs.

The Issue:

Women have made tremendous gains in education and now make up 44% of college-educated workers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) occupations. However, a closer look at the underlying data reveals divergent patterns of gender (in)equality within STEM. Men continue to make up the vast majority of degree recipients in STEM fields that are spatially and mathematically intensive — geoscience, engineering, economics, mathematics, computer science, and physical science — while women are overrepresented in life sciences, psychology, and social sciences. If anything, these gender disparities appear to be widening slightly over time at the undergraduate level, with potential implications for gender differences in employment, pay, academia, and beyond.

While women earn close to half of all STEM bachelor’s degrees, there is wide variation in women’s representation across fields.

The Facts:

• Women have made dramatic inroads in education since the 1990s. From making up less than a third of the college-educated workforce in the early 1990s, women have come to surpass men — making up 52% of the workforce with at least a college degree in 2019. The representation of college-educated women in STEM occupations has also been trending upwards since the early 1990s. 
• While women earn close to half of all STEM bachelor’s degrees, there is wide variation in women’s representation across fields. In 2017, 49% of all bachelor’s degrees in science and engineering were awarded to women. This number masks substantial gender disparities across fields, however. Women earned two-thirds of bachelor’s degrees in life sciences, psychology and social science fields — 62% in biology, 78% in psychology, and 61% in social science. In contrast, women were only slightly over one quarter of degree recipients in the combined math-intensive fields of geoscience (39%), engineering (22%), economics (32%), mathematics (42%), computer science (19%), and the physical sciences (40%).
• Gender disparities within science, technology, engineering, and mathematics bachelor’s degrees have become more pronounced since 2000. The number of women earning bachelor’s degrees in life sciences, psychology and social sciences grew faster than the number of men since 2000. These fields, which started out with high female shares at the turn of the century, became even more disproportionately represented by women at the undergraduate level. Similarly, even as the numbers of women in many of the STEM fields that started out with a disproportionate representation of men have been increasing, the number of men earning bachelor’s degrees in several of these fields grew faster than the number of women — this trend was most pronounced in computer science and mathematics, while engineering was an exception (see chart). 
• Female attrition along the STEM educational hierarchy is driven by the very disciplines that, paradoxically, seem to attract large numbers of women at the entry level. In general, women earned a smaller share of doctoral degrees than bachelor’s degrees in 2017, reflecting the well-known leaky pipeline in women’s progress up the career hierarchy. In STEM fields, the pipeline is leakiest in life science, psychology and social science fields, which are female-dominated at the undergraduate level — the female share of degree recipients in these fields was 58% at the doctoral level compared with 66% at the bachelor’s level in 2017. In contrast, the four fields with the lowest female shares among bachelor’s degrees recipients — geoscience, engineering, economics, and computer science — have higher female representation among PhD recipients. 
• Gender differences carry over from education to the STEM workforce. While the college-educated STEM workforce had almost reached gender parity in 2019, with a female share of 44%, large gender gaps remain between types of STEM jobs. Although only 29% of the science and engineering (S&E) workforce in 2019 was female, women were 57% of S&E-related workers (e.g. nurse, dental hygienist). The representation of women coincides with the patterns of gender balance in STEM degrees. Women scientists and engineers comprise 48% of biological, agricultural and environmental life scientists, 81% of psychologists, and 64% of social scientists; and much smaller shares of geoscientists (30%), engineers (16%), economists (24%), mathematical scientists (42%), computer scientists (24%), and physical scientists (35%). Even within the S&E-related workforce, women comprise 70% of health-related occupations — such as nurses, pharmacists, and physician assistants — but only 21% of computer and information systems managers. 
• The STEM fields in which women are underrepresented typically pay higher salaries than fields with high shares of women. For example, the median salary in 2019 for full-time workers holding the highest degree in their field was $105,000 for computer scientists and $100,000 for engineers, both male-dominated occupations. Among female-heavy occupations, median salary was $74,000 for psychologists and $64,000 for biological, agricultural and environmental scientists.
• The share of women holding academic positions has increased substantially but also varies greatly by field. In 2019, women comprised 39% of all academic positions held by science, engineering and health doctorate holders at 2- and 4-year colleges or universities. This reflects a substantial increase from just 9% in 1973 and 22% in 1993. Gender gaps vary noticeably by fields. Women held only 19% of academic positions in engineering, 26% in physical and geosciences, 26% in mathematics and statistics, and 23% in computer science. This is in contrast to 60% of positions in psychology, 47% in life sciences, and 42% in social sciences including economics. Among academic position types, women are more likely than men to hold “other” full-time positions (instructor, adjunct, lecturer, research associate, administrator) as well as post-doc and part-time positions. 
• A leaky pipeline reduces the share of women rising up the ranks of career hierarchy in academia. Women were 45% of junior full-time faculty but only 33% of senior full-time faculty in 2019. However, the pipeline leaks more in fields where women are overrepresented in the lower ranks. In psychology, for instance, the share of women was 68% among junior full-time faculty and 53% among senior faculty, a 15 percentage-point difference. With a 6 percentage-point difference, pipeline leakage is smallest in computer science: the share of women was 25% among junior full-time computer science faculty and 19% among senior faculty. What explains the differences in pipeline leakage by field? It is possible that the smaller number of women who choose to enter the male-dominated fields may be highly positively selected — especially motivated — compared to those who enter the more female-friendly fields. This is consistent with research showing that a large number of female entrants into STEM fields has a negative impact on gender equality in that field in terms of career outcomes. In psychology and the social sciences, it may be that the higher degree of female representation in the lower ranks indicates a shift in the preferences of men: the number of junior male faculty has declined since 1981. This may be due to occupational “tipping”, whereby men start to exit an occupation when the fraction of women in that occupation rises above a certain threshold.

What this Means:

As a smaller proportion of women enter geoscience, engineering, economics, mathematics, computer science, and physical science at the undergraduate level, the career pipeline in these fields will become even smaller. Less gender diversity could be detrimental to the quality and relevance of knowledge generated in these fields, by narrowing the range of ideas generated and reducing success in problem solving. We should then expect the same outcome in life sciences, psychology and social sciences if women continue to saturate them while men exit. A widening of the uneven gender distribution between STEM fields helps perpetuate the gender pay gap. This, in turn, can have negative consequences for gender equality outside the labor market if, for example, lower female-male wage ratios erode women’s decision-making power in the family and reduce women’s well-being.

Written by Econofact

Explore the full table for the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2022: Engineering & Technology.

Engineering degrees are some of the most popular international studies in the world. No matter what branch of Engineering and Technology you plan to specialise in, you can be sure the competition will be on.

Engineering studies offer a great entry on the job market, but you will have to prove that you’re best suited for the job. That’s why studying at one of the best engineering schools in Europe can give you the competitive edge and the skills to prove yourself in the field you choose to follow.

To help with your decision process, we’ve gathered data about top engineering schools in Europe from QS World University Rankings, US News & Global Report, Times Higher Education and AcademicInfluence.com. Check out their top 10 European engineering schools rankings and their extended lists, if you want to go more into details.

1. QS World University Rankings by Subject 2021: Engineering and Technology

• University of Cambridge, UK
• ETH Zurich – Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Switzerland
• University of Oxford, UK
• Imperial College London, UK
• EPFL – Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, Switzerland
• Delft University of Technology, Netherlands
• Politecnico di Milano, Italy
• Technical University of Munich, Germany
• KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden
• Politecnico di Torino, Italy

Find the full list of top engineering schools and colleges on the TopUniversities website.

2. U.S. News & Global Report – Engineering Universities 2022

• Aalborg University, Denmark
• ETH Zurich – Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Switzerland
• Imperial College London, UK
• Delft University of Technology, Netherlands
• Polytechnic University of Milan, Italy
• EPFL – Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, Switzerland
• Technical University of Denmark, Denmark
• KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden
• University of Cambridge, UK
• KU Leuven, Belgium

Don’t forget about the full Engineering ranking list on the U.S. News website.

3. World University Rankings 2022 by subject: Engineering

• University of Cambridge, UK
• University of Oxford, UK
• ETH Zurich – Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Switzerland
• Imperial College London, UK
• EPFL – Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, Switzerland
• Delft University of Technology, Netherlands
• Technical University of Munich, Germany
• RWTH Aachen University, Germany
• University College London (UCL), UK
• The University of Manchester, UK

The complete ranking of engineering universities is available on Times Higher Education official website.

4. Academic Influence Rankings – Engineering

AcademicInfluence.com prides itself with their real-time objective rankings compiled using machine learning and web search algorithms that minimise bias in rankings. The rankings consider alumni published papers, industry citations, and references to schools, programmes and school departments.

Find below the list of top engineering schools selected from the compiled list of results:

• University of Cambridge, UK
• University of Edinburgh, UK
• Technical University of Berlin, Germany
• University of Glasgow, UK
• Imperial College London, UK
• ETH Zurich, Switzerland
• King’s College London, UK
• University of London, UK
• Technical University of Munich, Germany
• University of Paris, France

See the full Academic Influence engineering list worldwide on the official website.

If you want to study from the comfort of your home, check out online Bachelors and Masters in Engineering.

Here are other European engineering schools we recommend:

• University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria, Austria
• Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Belgium
• Aarhus University, Denmark
• Institut Polytechnique de Paris, France
• Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Germany

Students review the best engineering schools in Europe

If university rankings are not enough for you (and they shouldn’t be) find out more in-depth information about top-ranked universities from students who studied there. Here is a list of student reviews left on our website by engineering school graduates:

• University of Cambridge - Student Reviews
• Technical University of Munich - Student Reviews
• KTH Royal Institute of Technology - Student Reviews
• Delft University of Technology - Student Reviews
• KU Leuven - Student Reviews
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Ready to study Engineering in Europe?

Europe is a great destination for international students because you can find affordable tuition fees even at top engineering schools. The quality of education is great, you’ll meet students from all over the world, and you will grow a lot, both personally and academically.

If you’re ready to be the next Henry Ford or Nikola Tesla, Europe’s best engineering schools are waiting for you.

Written by StudyPortals

The importance of STEM fields

The professions that are likely to be in greatest demand in the years to come are linked with STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). This is highlighted by the vast majority of reports. Not only will STEM graduates enjoy more employment opportunities and a wider range of openings, but innovation, greater productivity and improved global economic well-being will also become increasingly dependent on STEM disciplines. What is more, key challenges in today’s world such as digitalisation or the ecological transition are transversally related to STEM fields.

The percentage of STEM graduates

In the first instance, the indicator that should be analysed is the percentage of all university graduates in STEM subjects across the continent. If we break down the broader STEM domains, they can be seen as a range of subjects spanning the natural sciences; physical, chemical and geological sciences; mathematics and statistics; computer science and information and communication technologies (ICT); engineering; and architecture and construction.

According to the most recent Eurostat data, 25.8% of university graduates graduated in STEM subjects in the 27 countries of the European Union as a whole in 2019. The leading country among them all was Germany, with 36.9% of graduates. In addition, Romania, Finland, Austria, Estonia and Portugal (in descending order) also had between 30% and 27.5% of STEM graduates. At the other end of the spectrum, less than 20% of all university graduates in Spain, Bulgaria, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Belgium, Malta and Cyprus (ordered from highest to lowest) came from STEM fields.

If the different subfields within the general categories are examined, as regards computing and ICT, the three countries with the highest percentage of university graduates, as a proportion of the total, were Ireland, Estonia and Finland (around 7-9%) while Germany, Portugal and Lithuania stand out in engineering, architecture and construction (24.2% in the first named country and 19-20% in the other two); as concerns the remaining fields, sciences plus mathematics and statistics, the top places were occupied by France (where almost 10% of university graduates belonged to these disciplines), Greece, Austria, Ireland and Germany (8-9%).

STEM university graduates in relation to the number of young people

A more meaningful comparison of the significance of STEM subjects in different European countries can be obtained if STEM graduates are considered alongside the total number of 20 to 29-year-olds. The indicator for the EU-27 as a whole is 17.4 STEM graduates per thousand young people. Among the highest-ranking countries, that is those with an indicator of over 20 per thousand, we find Ireland, Finland, Germany, Denmark and Poland. While those that lag furthest behind, with an indicator of fewer than 13 per thousand, are Slovakia, Hungary, Latvia, Malta, Cyprus and Luxembourg, ranked from highest to lowest.

Women and STEM

One of the recurring themes that emerges when discussing STEM subjects is the relatively limited presence of women in these fields. Indeed, although women make up the majority of university graduates in almost all European countries and account for 57.7% in the EU as a whole (the exception is Germany with 49.6%), when it comes to STEM, women are a minority everywhere, without exception (34.1% in the EU-27). In only four (Romania, Poland, Greece and Estonia) do women account for more than 40% of STEM graduates, and in no case do they exceed 43%. At the other extreme, women make up less than 27.5% of STEM graduates in four other countries, namely Finland, Luxembourg, Belgium and Germany.

When considered by academic subfields, it is, in the first place, in computer science and ICT where the relative presence of women among graduates is lowest: 21.4% in the EU, with minimum rates below 16% in Spain, the Netherlands, Slovakia and Belgium, and maximum levels between 34 and 37%, from highest to lowest, in Estonia, Greece, Sweden, Romania and Bulgaria. In second place, the lowest proportions of female graduates are to be found in engineering, architecture and construction: 28.6% across the EU. Poland, with practically 42% of the graduates in this subfield being women, is the country with the highest percentage, followed by Romania (38.5%), Sweden and Greece (around 35% each). At the other end of the scale, with 22% women or fewer, are Finland, Luxembourg, Ireland and Germany. By way of contrast, in mathematics, women represent almost half of the graduates in the EU, 47.6%, although this figure ranges from 65 to 70% in Romania, Estonia, Cyprus, Latvia and Poland to less than 35% in France, Denmark, Austria, Malta, Ireland and Sweden.

Among the proposals that have been made to try to increase the presence of women in STEM fields, we might note those aimed at making successful women scientists, engineers, computer scientists and mathematicians more visible in their respective careers; support given to girls with a vocation for these fields from an early age; providing more information about the good job prospects and future opportunities in STEM fields; or even considering the possibility of offering economic incentives, such as special scholarships or prizes.

Written by uMultirank

The Issue:

Remote work became a necessity for a very large share of workers at the beginning of the COVID pandemic. The experience has provided a valuable opportunity to study how remote work impacts both firms and workers, and about the prospects for a new balance in working modalities. Will the pandemic experience change the way we work in the future? What are the distributional implications when there are limited opportunities for many people to work from home? How will working from home affect workers' sense of isolation and companies' productivity? Evidence from the Survey of Working Arrangements and Attitudes (SWAA), offers important insights.

There was an estimated twelve-fold increase in full paid days worked from home between January and May 2020.

The Facts:

• The share of workers laboring from home rose dramatically at the outset of the pandemic and, while it has diminished, continues at a much higher rate than before March of 2020. As shown in the chart, there was an estimated twelve-fold increase in full paid days at home between January 2020, when it was 5 percent, and May 2020, when this number rose to 60 percent – in other words, an increase in roughly one day per month to 12 days per month. This was not spread evenly, of course, with frontline workers and others not having the opportunity to work remotely. Since the beginning of 2021 the number of full-time paid days at home has stayed within the range of 40 percent to 50 percent.
• There are three modes of work, and the division of workers across these modes is largely correlated with education and income. Estimates from the SWAA, a monthly online survey run jointly by the University of Chicago, MIT, Stanford, and ITAM in Mexico that began in May 2022, suggest that after COVID 55 percent of employees will need to work fully on-site because jobs such as those in manufacturing and retail do not allow for working from home. These workers tend to have less formal education and to be lower paid than those who able to work from home. About 15 percent of workers will be fully remote. They work in jobs such as IT support and back-office functions and are often contractors. The remaining 30 percent of employees will be in hybrid situations, splitting time between working on site and working remotely. These are professional and manager-level jobs, employing people with more formal education and who are better paid than those in the other two categories. In fact, the variation in the opportunity to work remotely is almost entirely driven by differences in education and income levels rather than gender, race, or age. Working from home is viewed by many as a perquisite of a job, with an estimated value of about an 8 percent pay increase (more so in tech and finance jobs), equivalent to the compensation from a pension or a healthcare plan. But because the option of working from home tends to be less available to lower-paid workers, the shift to working from home benefits better paid workers more than lower paid workers on average.
• About one-third of employees would like to be fully remote post-COVID, a little more than one-fifth would like to be fully on-site and the remaining 45 percent prefer a hybrid arrangement. Along with this breakdown, the SWAA further asked, for those who preferred hybrid arrangements, the number of days people would like to work from home. Of the 45 percent who preferred some work from home, about one fifth (22 percent) preferred working from home one day per week, about one third preferred two or three days per week (31 percent for each) and the remaining 16 percent preferred working from home for four days per week. The most cited reason people liked working from home was time saved commuting – when asked to list the top three benefits of working from home, this was cited by 60 percent of respondents. (The average American commutes about one hour each day.) Two other often-cited reasons are a flexible work schedule and less time needed to get ready for work, cited 49 percent and 47 percent of the time, respectively. Three other reasons listed in the survey were a preference for a quieter environment, spending more time with friends and family, and having fewer meetings (cited in 38 percent, 37 percent and 16 percent of responses, respectively).
• There are differences in preferences for working from home by age and gender. There is a greater preference for in-person work among the youngest employees and those over 55. Those in the middle age group who have young or school-aged children have a mildly higher preference to work from home – for them, the desire to be around because of childcare somewhat outweighs the challenges of being in a more chaotic, nosier environment, despite the fact that those people tended to find it difficult to work from home. In terms of gender, the levels of work from home during the pandemic for men and women have been very similar and have tended to rise and fall together. Post-pandemic, people want to work from home more than what employers are likely to allow, and the gap between the desired and allowed work from home is almost 50 percent larger for women than for men. The reasons for this are not fully known, but could be related to occupational structure, industrial structure, full time versus part-time work and discrimination, among other reasons.
• Despite concerns at the outset of the pandemic, working from home had a positive impact on productivity. Evidence from SWAA finds that hybrid working from home increases average productivity by about five percent. In fact, the productivity gains seem to be rising as companies and employees learn how to take advantage of remote work opportunities. In-person work helps with creativity and innovation through formal and informal meetings. It can also be good for fostering an esprit de corps. But this seems to be outweighed by the benefits of less time commuting and preparing for in-person work – about 40 percent of survey respondents said that they spent more time working because of the time saved by not commuting, and time that would have been spent in meetings may be more productively spent otherwise. Hybrid working offers the benefits of both meeting in person on days spent in the office and saving commuting time on days worked from home. Perhaps as a consequence of these increasing productivity gains, employers' plans for the average number of days per week working from home have increased from less than 1.6 days in early 2021 to more than 2.1 days in February 2022.
• The shift to remote working has had some spillover effects, but not necessarily those that were the focus of concern at the outset of the pandemic. There was a view in the early days of the pandemic that commercial real estate would take a big hit. But companies are not planning to cut office space by much, likely because they still need to accommodate workers who come in less than five days per week and scheduling to save space is challenging. Two large surveys of companies that I helped run, one with the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta looking at Chicago and the other with the Bank of England looking at Nottingham, have both found reports of office space demand dropping by only 2 to 3 percent. In terms of residential properties, there is evidence that people are relocating out of the dense centers of large cities towards lower density suburbs, or even more remote exurbs or very rural locations. A co-author and I call this the "donut effect" as big cities like San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago have lost about 10% of their population from the city centers. One potentially big effect that demands careful policy consideration is the impact of remote working on public transport as urban transport networks like the New York Subway, commuter rail, and BART in San Francisco are seeing permanent reductions in usage. BART predicts that its ridership will be down 30 percent in the long run. Revenue shortfalls from declining ridership are very damaging to systems that have high fixed costs. Public transportation helps keep cars off the road and reduce traffic congestion and disproportionately serves the lower-income and middle-income communities.

What this Means:

The growth of working from home has generated a boom in the development of new technologies that increasingly supporting remote work, and these technologies are likely to continue to improve – in fact, the flow of new patents supporting working from home doubled within the first 18 months of the pandemic. The shift to remote work will have massive impacts on society. Outsourcing and offshoring will grow as footloose fully remote workers gain locational flexibility. One consequence is workers' continued move from city centers to suburbs and more rural locations. There are also potential effects that will increase labor supply. Older workers, those caring for young children or older relatives, the disabled and those living in rural areas gain easier access to employment, particularly part-time employment. The greater ease of working shorter and more flexible hours from home is also very appealing to many people who would otherwise not be in the labor force. These increases in the supply of labor could drive growth. Finally, working from home is a huge welfare benefit to the roughly 50 percent of employees who can do this, saving them over an hour per day in time that would otherwise be spent commuting and getting ready for work. This should continue the trend of greater time devoted to leisure activities, something we can all look forward to.

Written by The EconoFact Network.