While the Randstad (Amsterdam and its surrounding areas) is dominated by large service-based corporations, many of which are multinationals with rapid staff turnover, the North is home to smaller, local companies that export specialised goods, foods, and expertise internationally. Because many of these companies are smaller, your application won’t be scanned by a machine. Instead, a real person will be reading your CV and cover letter, so it’s important to focus less on buzzwords and more on what genuinely interests you about the company or job!

There's a few places that are worth looking at in particular — and a few industries with not so many international-friendly opportunities.

Each year, the Dutch governmental employment bureau (UWV) publishes a report on "high-opportunity professions": jobs for which there are more openings than applicants. While many of these positions require Dutch, it’s good to keep an eye on them. Current examples include security expert, truck driver, catering employee, audiologist, logistical planner, forestry maintenance worker, recruiter, travel consultant, lawyer, mortgage consultant, police officer, swimming instructor, and many, many more.

Check out the full report (in Dutch) here. Over the long term, the healthcare, IT, and technology industries are expected to continue experiencing significant shortages.

For internationals seeking English-speaking jobs, most current opportunities can be found in:

We’re also seeing growth in fields like account management, sales, finance, and business development.

These are the areas where English-friendly jobs are most common, but opportunities exist in other industries as well! More importantly: you can try to create your own opportunities everywhere!

Certain fields, such as marketing and communication in particular, are highly competitive. Many internationals follow communications programmes in the Netherlands, and Dutchies often also speak fluent English, so you're up against many international and local applicants. This means your CV and letter need to be above excellent to snatch such job opportunities. Also, because there are so many candidates (Dutch and European), it tends to be very difficult to get a visa-sponsored job in this area.

The Netherlands, like much of Europe, is shifting towards a skill-based labour market. Employers are placing more emphasis on experience and transferable skills, rather than just degrees. This means that volunteer work or university projects can demonstrate your capabilities just as well as paid positions. When applying for jobs, be sure to highlight the skills most relevant to the role and have concrete examples ready to showcase your expertise.

All companies on our platform are open to English-speaking jobseekers. Below is the distribution of these companies over sectors (based on data from November 2023):

We've got some figures for you on the local job market, but also some other numbers that may be interesting for you!

There are a total of 201,000 company locations (including freelancers) in the North:

1.8 million people live in the North (about 10% of the whole country’s population) in total, of which 72,000 are internationals (that's 4%). The international community is built up in the following way:

The main countries of origin for internationals differs per group. For example, the majority of highly-skilled migrants are from Germany in all Northern provinces (25-35%) while Friesland and Drenthe also have many from Poland (23-26%).