The IT Industry in Madrid: General Profile

Although Madrid is not Spain’s largest tech center, in the past 7 years it grew dramatically and proved that it’s worth investing in companies and startups located there. The average fundings the city receives for startup programs is around $360M/year. Even though the amount of money is considerably higher than between 2010-2016, Madrid is far behind in investing real money compared to Europe’s leading tech centers (London $5.65B; Paris - $2.77B; Berlin - $2.67B).

Even so, back in 2019 Madrid was the home of over 1235 startups and now in 2021, the number is probably higher, despite the pandemics. However, these startups in Madrid are small in relatively new and do not attract large investments, which is totally different from Barcelona where tech startups have managed to attract a considerable amount of investors - with almost the same amount of startups the investments rose above $900M in 2019 only. 

On the other hand, Madrid and Barcelona are making out of Spain an example in the tech and IT industry. Spain managed to do what France and the UK could not achieve - decentralize the tech market. So now if we put Madrid and Barcelona’s tech stage together, Spain looks like a startup nation with a higher digitalization potential in all fields. Talking about startups, there a series of programs, accelerators, and incubators located in Madrid that power-up the tech scene and develop the business environment. Some of the most notable are Warya Spain, Impact Accelerator, Fundacion Repsol, Fil Rouge Capital, and Wanajump. 

Also, there are a series of tech behemoths and international corporations with offices in Madrid - Amazon, Vodafone, Ericsson-Worldwide, Amadeus, and Airbus. After all, Madrid is still Spain’s capital. 

When it comes to salaries -  we didn’t believe it either, but numbers are numbers, and glassdoor data states that the average wage in IT for professionals in Madrid is even higher than in Barcelona. 

Overall, Madrid is a good destination for investors, IT companies, young professionals, and generally for businesses that seek professional digital assistance. If the city will continue its digital transformation will probably become one of Europe’s top tech hubs.