Last updated: 2026-08-31

Netherlands vs the United Kingdom: what 37,733 live job postings say

Qarera's index holds 12,486 live job postings in the Netherlands and 25,247 in the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom is 2.0 times the size. Language is what separates them. 41.5% of postings in the Netherlands are written in English against 99.9% in the United Kingdom, which leaves 5,182 openings in the Netherlands and 25,210 in the United Kingdom that a candidate who reads only English can act on. The United Kingdom carries 4.9 times as many.

Every figure on this page is counted from postings collected directly from company career pages and applicant tracking systems, not from other job boards, and it refreshes daily.

MeasureNetherlandsUnited Kingdom
Live job postingsadvertised right now12,48625,247
Postings written in Englishcount, and share of all postings5,182 (41.5%)25,210 (99.9%)
Remote-friendlyshare of all postings8.9%15.3%
Mention visa or relocation supportshare of English-language postings, not comparable across countries9.3%9.5%
Largest hiring cityshare of the country totalAmsterdam (28%)London (32.1%)

What the language figure does and does not mean

The index records the language a posting is written in. That is not the same as the language the job requires. A German-language advert is not proof that the role needs fluent German, and an English advert is not proof that the workplace runs in English day to day.

What it does measure is the filter a candidate hits first. An advert they cannot read is an advert they cannot answer, whatever the role would have tolerated. That is why the count of English-language postings is a better guide to how open a market feels than the count of postings overall.

Why this page does not rank the two on visa sponsorship

9.3% of English-language postings in the Netherlands mention visa sponsorship or relocation support, against 9.5% in the United Kingdom. Those two numbers sit in the table above, and they should not be read as a ranking. The systems behind them differ in kind, so a posting's silence means a different thing in each country.

The Netherlands

An employer must be an IND recognised sponsor to use the highly skilled migrant route, which is set by a salary threshold rather than a labour market test. Recognition is common among larger employers and rarely advertised.

The United Kingdom

An employer needs a Home Office sponsor licence before it can hire most non-residents, and the Skilled Worker route requires an offer from a licensed sponsor. Sponsorship is a status the employer either holds or does not, which gives it a reason to say so in the advert.

The phrase match is blunt in both directions as well. It counts a posting that says sponsorship is available and a posting that says the candidate must already hold a valid work visa, and those point opposite ways. Read the share within one country over time, or across employers inside one country. Do not read it across two immigration regimes. Rules also change faster than any index; check the responsible authority before relying on the summaries above.

Where the work actually is

London holds 32.1% of all postings in the United Kingdom. Amsterdam holds 28% of the Netherlands's. The second cities pull them further apart: Rotterdam carries 2,063 postings against Amsterdam's 3,492, while Birmingham carries 982 against London's 8,100.

#NetherlandsPostingsUnited KingdomPostings
1Amsterdam3,492London8,100
2Rotterdam2,063Birmingham982
3Utrecht1,248Manchester839
4The Hague602Edinburgh583
5Eindhoven526Leeds491
6Tilburg215Glasgow451

Not every posting names a city, so these shares do not add up to 100%. The six cities above account for 65.2% of postings in the Netherlands and 45.3% in the United Kingdom.

Who is doing the hiring

Neither market is held up by a handful of employers. The largest single advertiser in the Netherlands, VDK Groep B.V., accounts for 4.6% of the country's live postings. In the United Kingdom it is Leonardo, at 1.1%. The lists below are what sits at the top of each market, which is a question of composition rather than concentration.

The Netherlands

  • VDK Groep B.V.572
  • aaff B.V.296
  • RP Group222
  • KPMG Nederland179
  • Jobster161
  • Vion Food Group86

The United Kingdom

  • Leonardo283
  • Culina Group199
  • WPP Media199
  • Adler & Allan187
  • DPD Group UK185
  • United Infrastructure184

Remote work

The United Kingdom advertises the higher share of remote-friendly work, 15.3% against 8.9%. A posting counts as remote-friendly when the advert itself says so, which understates hybrid roles that never spell it out.

Figures you can quote

Each of these is written to stand on its own, with the sample and the date inside the sentence.

The Netherlands advertises 5,182 live job postings in English to the United Kingdom's 25,210 (Aug 2026), according to Qarera's live job index.
About 2 in 5 job postings in the Netherlands are written in English (41.5% of 12,486 live postings, Aug 2026), according to Qarera's live job index.
London holds 32.1% of live job postings in the United Kingdom, against Amsterdam's 28% in the Netherlands (Aug 2026), according to Qarera's live job index.
9.3% of English-language job postings in the Netherlands mention visa sponsorship or relocation support (480 of 5,182 postings, Aug 2026), according to Qarera's live job index.
9.5% of English-language job postings in the United Kingdom mention visa sponsorship or relocation support (2,392 of 25,210 postings, Aug 2026), according to Qarera's live job index.

Citing this figure

Figures for the comparison of job postings in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom are drawn from 37,733 live postings across both markets, as of 2026-08-31. Postings are collected from company career pages and applicant tracking systems and refreshed daily; see how the index is built and what it cannot tell you.

Free to quote or republish with attribution to Qarera and a link to this page. Please include the date, because the index is live. Citation wording and licence →

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