One of the maximums of the market, of any market, has to do with the law of supply and demand. But the technological universe is slightly more complex: there may be a lot of demand for some novel device or some brand new innovation and the offer does not arrive. And that is what will happen in Spain. Artificial intelligence is transforming not only the way it works, but also the type of talent that companies need. Between 2023 and 2024, The demand for AI projects by companies in Spain grew by 220% (in line with 230% registered at European level), while the number of freelancers Specialized in this technology only covers 40% of that demand.
Those are the conclusions of the report Malt Tech Trends 2025prepared by ((Link: external ||| https: //www.malt.es/ “>)a platform that connects talented companies Freelance. The report reflects how the demand for freelancers Specialized in AI continues to grow much faster than the offer. In a nutshell: There are barely 40 people to cover 220 specialized positions.
The search for skills in AI by European companies has increased remarkably, especially with regard to large language models (LLM), whose demand has multiplied by five.
To this knowledge we must also add the one linked to cybersecurity, open source programming and knowledge of European regulations. In this section, Malt’s report emphasizes that our country is one of the main protagonists at European level. For example, the demand for specialized profiles grows rapidly, highlighting Experts in virtualization (+319%), data engineers (+83%) and data executives (+68%) and IoT developers (+50%).
All this elevates The daily average rate of experts in € 310, compared to € 250 of other technological profiles. In addition, 37% of projects are hired for more than a month, with an average duration of six months. What is the problem then? There is a lot of demand for experts, as demonstrated by the aforementioned report, but the offer is not working properly.
For example, according to the website specialized in education DD, Of the 10 most important cities to establish a career in AI, The only present is Barcelona. And in the eight position. Among the benefits, the web highlights the city’s lifestyle, but points out that salaries are usually lower than usual. And, if we take into account that many of the ventures are based on professionals who can live anywhere in the world, it is complex (if not difficult) to come to live here.
Luckily there is still time to train the professionals of the future … or something. Of the 100 most important universities for Study artificial intelligence, Spain just appears in 51st position (with the Polytechnic University of Madrid). Obviously ahead has the classic Americans, Chinese and Indian emerging, but also more than a dozen European universities.
Thus, it is obvious that we are facing a growing demand for professionals in this field, but Local initiatives are not satisfying the educational offer And it is not possible to position cities to be more competitive and tempting at the professional level.