Top 100 Countries by High-Skilled Jobs Share in Total Employment, 2025

by StatRanker December 20, 2025 1582 59 min read

Countries with the largest share of high-skilled jobs in employment

High-skilled jobs share measures the proportion of employed people working in management, professional, technical and associate-professional occupations. It helps show whether an economy creates many professional and technical roles, rather than relying mainly on routine, informal or low-productivity work.

The 2025 ranking uses the latest available comparable employment-by-occupation data. For many countries, the latest observation is 2023 or 2024 because labor-force surveys are released with a lag. Values are rounded estimates and should be read as occupational-structure indicators, not wage rankings or official national rankings.

Overview of the 2025 high-skilled employment snapshot

Leader

Switzerland

Its high ranking reflects a dense mix of professional services, advanced manufacturing, healthcare, finance, research and technical occupations.

Top 10 range

53.2%–59.8%

The leaders sit close together, mostly between 53% and 60%, and are mainly advanced service economies with large professional and technical workforces.

Top 100 median

33.0%

The midpoint of the ranking sits close to one-third of total employment, showing how unevenly high-skill occupations are distributed.

Key limitation

Occupation based

The indicator classifies jobs by occupation. It does not directly measure pay, job quality, productivity, informality or the skill level of every individual worker.

The top of the ranking is dominated by Europe, North America and several advanced Asia-Pacific economies. That pattern reflects the weight of professional services, public-sector specialists, ICT, finance, healthcare, education and technical occupations in mature service economies.

Next: Top ranking →Go to table ↓

Top 10 countries by high-skilled jobs share

Countries at the top usually have large professional, technical and managerial workforces rather than labor markets dominated by agriculture, elementary services or routine production roles. Small financial and administrative hubs can rank high because a large share of their workforce is employed in offices, hospitals, schools, technology, research, government and business services.

Switzerland

59.8%

Finance, pharmaceuticals, engineering, healthcare and research create a very large professional and technical workforce.

Luxembourg

58.9%

A small labor market with a strong financial, legal, administrative and EU-institution footprint.

Netherlands

57.1%

High shares of business services, logistics management, public administration, engineering and digital work.

Sweden

56.4%

Strong public services, ICT, engineering, life sciences and high tertiary-education attainment support the ranking.

Denmark

55.8%

A knowledge-intensive economy with large healthcare, education, public administration and advanced services sectors.

Norway

55.2%

Energy, public services, engineering and professional work lift the high-skilled occupational share.

Singapore

54.6%

A compact hub for finance, logistics management, ICT, pharmaceuticals and regional headquarters functions.

United Kingdom

54.1%

Large professional-services, finance, healthcare, education, creative and technology sectors drive the high share.

Finland

53.8%

Education, public services, engineering and technology-intensive industries keep the occupational structure skill-heavy.

Iceland

53.2%

A small, high-income labor market where public services, tourism management and professional work carry substantial weight.

Next: Full ranking table →Back to overview ↑

Top 20 summary table

Rank	Country	Share	Region
1	Switzerland	59.8%	Europe
2	Luxembourg	58.9%	Europe
3	Netherlands	57.1%	Europe
4	Sweden	56.4%	Europe
5	Denmark	55.8%	Europe
6	Norway	55.2%	Europe
7	Singapore	54.6%	Asia
8	United Kingdom	54.1%	Europe
9	Finland	53.8%	Europe
10	Iceland	53.2%	Europe
11	Israel	52.7%	Middle East
12	Ireland	52.4%	Europe
13	Belgium	51.9%	Europe
14	Germany	50.8%	Europe
15	Canada	50.4%	Americas
16	France	49.8%	Europe
17	Australia	49.2%	Oceania
18	Estonia	48.6%	Europe
19	United States	48.1%	Americas
20	Austria	47.8%	Europe

Values are rounded shares of total employment in high-skilled occupational groups. The full ranking below can be searched by country, filtered by region and sorted by share.

Chart: high-skilled jobs share among the Top 20

Among the Top 20, the first and twentieth countries are separated by about 12 percentage points. The distance between the upper and lower parts of the full Top 100 is much wider.

Top 10 values

Switzerland — 59.8%
Luxembourg — 58.9%
Netherlands — 57.1%
Sweden — 56.4%
Denmark — 55.8%
Norway — 55.2%
Singapore — 54.6%
United Kingdom — 54.1%
Finland — 53.8%
Iceland — 53.2%

Next: Methodology →Back to table ↑

Methodology

The ranking is based on the occupational structure of employment. High-skilled jobs are defined as employment in occupational groups that broadly correspond to managers, professionals, technicians and associate professionals. In ISCO-08 terms, this is closest to major groups 1, 2 and 3. The share is calculated as high-skilled employment divided by total employment, multiplied by 100.

For the 2025 snapshot, the table uses the latest comparable labor-force data. The underlying observations are mostly labor-force survey releases for 2023 or 2024. Countries are included only when occupational categories are sufficiently comparable; values are rounded to one decimal point to avoid false precision.

This indicator is not a direct measure of income. A country can have a high share of professional and technical workers while still having wage dispersion, high housing costs or unequal access to opportunity. Likewise, a lower share does not mean that skilled people are absent; it often means that agriculture, elementary services, routine production, informality or low-productivity self-employment account for a larger part of total employment.

International comparability is affected by survey timing, national coding practice, informal work coverage and the treatment of armed forces, unpaid family workers and small self-employment. Because public occupational datasets differ in coverage and release timing, values should be treated as harmonized estimates rather than exact one-source observations.

Next: Ranking table →Back to charts ↑

Top 100 countries by high-skilled jobs share in total employment

The table is sorted from the highest high-skilled occupational share to the lowest within this Top 100 snapshot. Search by country, filter by region or compare Top 10, Top 20 and All 100.

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Rank	Country	High-skilled jobs share	Region
1	Switzerland	59.8%	Europe
2	Luxembourg	58.9%	Europe
3	Netherlands	57.1%	Europe
4	Sweden	56.4%	Europe
5	Denmark	55.8%	Europe
6	Norway	55.2%	Europe
7	Singapore	54.6%	Asia
8	United Kingdom	54.1%	Europe
9	Finland	53.8%	Europe
10	Iceland	53.2%	Europe
11	Israel	52.7%	Middle East
12	Ireland	52.4%	Europe
13	Belgium	51.9%	Europe
14	Germany	50.8%	Europe
15	Canada	50.4%	Americas
16	France	49.8%	Europe
17	Australia	49.2%	Oceania
18	Estonia	48.6%	Europe
19	United States	48.1%	Americas
20	Austria	47.8%	Europe
21	Malta	47.2%	Europe
22	Lithuania	46.8%	Europe
23	Slovenia	46.3%	Europe
24	Czechia	45.7%	Europe
25	Latvia	45.3%	Europe
26	New Zealand	44.9%	Oceania
27	Spain	44.4%	Europe
28	Cyprus	44.0%	Europe
29	Japan	43.5%	Asia
30	Korea, Rep.	43.1%	Asia
31	Portugal	42.6%	Europe
32	Italy	42.2%	Europe
33	Poland	41.8%	Europe
34	Croatia	41.3%	Europe
35	Hungary	40.9%	Europe
36	Slovakia	40.3%	Europe
37	Greece	39.8%	Europe
38	Romania	39.1%	Europe
39	Bulgaria	38.6%	Europe
40	Costa Rica	38.0%	Americas
41	Chile	37.4%	Americas
42	Uruguay	36.9%	Americas
43	Argentina	36.4%	Americas
44	United Arab Emirates	36.0%	Middle East
45	Saudi Arabia	35.5%	Middle East
46	Qatar	35.0%	Middle East
47	Malaysia	34.7%	Asia
48	Türkiye	34.1%	Europe/Asia
49	Serbia	33.7%	Europe
50	Montenegro	33.2%	Europe
51	Bosnia and Herzegovina	32.8%	Europe
52	North Macedonia	32.2%	Europe
53	Moldova	31.7%	Europe
54	Ukraine	31.1%	Europe
55	Armenia	30.8%	Europe/Asia
56	Georgia	30.2%	Europe/Asia
57	Kazakhstan	29.8%	Europe/Asia
58	Azerbaijan	29.1%	Europe/Asia
59	China	28.7%	Asia
60	Brazil	28.2%	Americas
61	Mexico	27.8%	Americas
62	Panama	27.3%	Americas
63	Colombia	26.9%	Americas
64	Peru	26.2%	Americas
65	Ecuador	25.8%	Americas
66	Dominican Republic	25.4%	Americas
67	Thailand	25.0%	Asia
68	Philippines	24.6%	Asia
69	South Africa	24.2%	Africa
70	Mauritius	23.8%	Africa
71	Tunisia	23.3%	Africa
72	Morocco	22.9%	Africa
73	Egypt	22.4%	Africa
74	Jordan	22.0%	Middle East
75	Lebanon	21.5%	Middle East
76	Indonesia	21.1%	Asia
77	Viet Nam	20.6%	Asia
78	Mongolia	20.2%	Asia
79	Paraguay	19.8%	Americas
80	Albania	19.4%	Europe
81	Sri Lanka	18.9%	Asia
82	El Salvador	18.5%	Americas
83	Guatemala	18.1%	Americas
84	Honduras	17.7%	Americas
85	India	17.3%	Asia
86	Bangladesh	16.8%	Asia
87	Pakistan	16.2%	Asia
88	Nepal	15.8%	Asia
89	Kenya	15.3%	Africa
90	Ghana	14.9%	Africa
91	Nigeria	14.5%	Africa
92	Senegal	14.0%	Africa
93	Côte d'Ivoire	13.6%	Africa
94	Tanzania	13.1%	Africa
95	Uganda	12.7%	Africa
96	Rwanda	12.3%	Africa
97	Ethiopia	11.8%	Africa
98	Cambodia	11.4%	Asia
99	Lao PDR	10.9%	Asia
100	Mozambique	10.5%	Africa

Data note: rounded estimates based on ILOSTAT employment by sex and occupation, supplemented with OECD, Eurostat, World Bank and UNESCO/OECD education context. The 2025 view uses the latest comparable occupational-structure data; values are rounded to 0.1 percentage point.

Next: Insights →Back to overview ↑

Insights from the high-skilled jobs ranking

The upper part of the ranking is dominated by advanced service economies. These countries tend to have large concentrations of professionals in healthcare, education, finance, software, engineering, business services, public administration and research. The strongest performers also have deep tertiary-education systems and labor markets that absorb graduates into professional roles rather than leaving them in underemployment.

The middle of the table is more mixed. It includes Central and Eastern European economies with strong technical workforces, Gulf countries with sizable professional and administrative sectors, and upper-middle-income economies where services and skilled industrial roles are expanding. In this group, the high-skilled share often rises when manufacturing becomes more complex, public services professionalize, and digital business services expand.

The lower part of this Top 100 is shaped by structural employment realities. Countries with larger agricultural, informal, elementary-service or low-productivity self-employment sectors naturally show lower high-skilled shares even when they have fast-growing pools of engineers, doctors, teachers or software workers. A low national share can therefore coexist with highly skilled urban clusters.

The ranking measures the structure of employment, not the talent of a population. It shows whether an economy creates enough professional and technical jobs to absorb skilled workers at scale.

Next: FAQ →Back to table ↑

What this means for readers

For workers and students, the indicator helps frame where economies are more likely to offer professional, technical and managerial career paths. A higher share suggests a deeper market for specialized occupations, although it does not guarantee high pay in every profession or easy entry for foreign workers.

For companies and investors, the ranking gives a rough signal of talent-pool depth. A country with a higher high-skilled employment share may offer broader access to managers, analysts, engineers, healthcare professionals, researchers, software workers and technical specialists. The figure still needs to be checked against wages, language, regulation, migration rules and sector-specific demand.

For policymakers, the ranking connects education policy with labor-market absorption. Producing graduates is not enough if the economy does not generate jobs that use advanced skills. The most resilient countries combine education quality, productive firms, professional public services, digital infrastructure and pathways from training into skilled employment.

FAQ

What counts as a high-skilled job?

In this ranking, high-skilled jobs are occupational groups closest to managers, professionals, technicians and associate professionals. These include roles such as engineers, teachers, doctors, nurses, software workers, financial specialists, researchers, public administrators and technical supervisors.

Does a higher share mean higher wages?

Not automatically. A high share means more people work in occupations usually associated with advanced skills. It does not measure wage levels, cost of living, job security, tax burden or inequality inside the country.

Why do small advanced economies often rank high?

Small high-income economies can have compact labor markets dominated by finance, government, headquarters functions, education, healthcare, ICT and professional services. These sectors raise the occupational share of high-skilled employment.

Why can industrial countries rank below service economies?

Manufacturing includes many skilled roles, but it also includes production, assembly, transport and routine occupations. Service economies with larger professional, administrative, research and technical sectors may therefore show a higher high-skilled share.

Is this the same as education level?

No. Education level measures qualifications of people; this ranking measures the occupations people actually hold. A country can have many graduates but a lower high-skilled jobs share if the economy does not create enough professional and technical roles.

Why are some countries hard to compare?

Labor-force surveys differ by timing, occupational coding, informal-work coverage and sample design. Some countries also have older data or less detailed occupational classifications, which can affect international comparability.

How should this ranking be used?

Use it as a structural labor-market signal. It helps compare economies by the scale of professional and technical employment, but it should be combined with wage data, sector demand, education indicators, productivity and migration rules before making personal or business decisions.

Next: Sources →Back to table ↑