Almost half of the new vacancies published last year required vocational training (46.96%; +5.05 p.p.) - Adecco Institute

Almost half of new job offers issued last year required vocational training (46.96%; +5.05 p.p.)

Vocational training (FP) in Spain has established itself as a high-impact educational path fully adapted to the needs of the labor market.According to data from the Ministry of Education, in the academic year 2024-2025, almost 1.2 million students chose this course, which emphasizes its growing importance in the national education system.In addition, FP is a direct gateway to work: according to data from the Active Population Survey; In 2024, the employment rate of FP graduates is 72.7% for Intermediate Degrees and 79.5% for Higher Degrees.

A trend confirmed once again by the data collected by the Infomplio job portal and by Adecco, a division of the Adecco group specialized in flexibility and competence.This is why today they present a detailed analysis of professional training in our country¹.A qualification that is once again at the forefront of demand from Spanish companies.

In the words of Julia Carpioni, Director of Adecco Services: "In addition to the numbers that underpin this training, there is a high demand across the team for VET students with a lot of practical, technical and digital skills, as well as transversal skills such as problem solving, salad dressing and adapting to changing circumstances. This combination of VET with a proper training journey not only improves employment, implements workers, but also increases companies. Vocational training The practicality and authenticity of this training further increases the connections with companies and even businesses. Boosting the already high vocational training rates."

For his part, Teresa Tomás, CEO of Infoempleo, says that this preference for professional training presentations is explained for several reasons: "First, it is usually a training that is more active in the work and in a real work environment, which allows them to integrate more quickly into production activities.

Development of FP in Spain

In 2024, Professional Education has reaffirmed its importance as the level of training most requested by Spanish companies in recent years.Although there was a slight decrease in their presence in job offers in 2022, in the last two years graduates of professional training cycles have regained prominence, positioning themselves once again among the most sought after profiles by the business community, especially in sectors linked to technology, energy and manufacturing.

A total of 46.96% of the analyzed job offers requiring specific training levels are sought by vocational graduates.In the Spanish labor market, the demand for this profile has increased by five units compared to 2023. The increase in the number of offers requiring vocational graduates contrasts with a significant decrease in jobs aimed at university graduates (21.42%), which is six percentage points lower than last year.

However, the movement within the DP was not uniform.Thus, the number of jobs for graduates of higher education courses increased by 7.31 points, which is 33.03 percent of the jobs published last year.On the other hand, the proposal to require graduates in secondary education courses decreased by 2.25 points and accounted for 13.93 percent of the total.

Adecco Infoempleo Report 2024: Job Supply and Demand in Spain

FP qualifications are highly sought after by companies

As we have seen, almost half of the offers published in our country require the candidate to have a professional degree.It is interesting that in 75.93 percent of these professional training offers, no specific professional family is specified, but only those who apply for the job have this training, which percentage has increased by 9.13 percent in the last year.

Adecco Infoempleo Report 2024: Employment Supply and Demand in Spain

After this type of offer, where the branch of professional education is not specified, the sectors that received the most job offers are: management and administration, which repeats its position in the ranking, although it experiences the largest year-on-year decline (6.29%; -2.44 p.p.), electricity and electronics, which is in second place, although -1.57 p.p.), mechanical construction (2.61%; -0.79 p.p., repeating the position for the third year in a row) andInstallation and maintenance, ranked unchanged (2.47%; -0.21 p.p.).

Business and marketing (1.25%; -0.89 points) will continue, although the percentage will decrease, but will increase in one place, replacing IT and communication positions (1.04%; -1.56 points).

Regional distribution of work assigned to FP

If we look at the territorial distribution of job offers for VET graduates, although the weight fell this year (-0.35 p.p.) VET studies (27.67% of all new vacancies announced in Spain) remained in the Community of Madrid for the third year in a row as an autonomy requiring more candidates.

This year, after publishing another edition of Catalonia, where the contribution of these graduates was 25.45% (they experienced a significant regional increase of 2.10 points per year).

Andalucia remains in third place for the second consecutive year, gaining 0.42 p.p.(second largest regional increase), accumulating 9.78% vacancies in vocational education.Fourth is the Basque Country, which now has 7.61% of offers after experiencing the largest drop in regional distribution at 1.29 percentage points.These four associations collect 7 of the 10 offers aimed at graduates in vocational education and at the same time maintain regional disparities.

In fifth place, the Valencian Community continues for another year (6.96%), which lost 0.85 p.p.in the last year.It is followed by Castile and León, with 5.89% of the national offer of professional education, three tenths less than last year.

In the next stage, Aragon is again in seventh position with 3.87% of FP offers and recovers by just over three tenths year-on-year, followed by Castilla-La Mancha, which has seen a similar increase and now accounts for 2.67% of all published FP vacancies.

Also in this edition the region of Murcia maintains its position (1.93%; -0.18 p.p.), as does Galicia (1.84%; -0.22 p.p.).

Between 0.80% and 1.30% of the new FP sites are in the Autonomous Regions of Cantabria (1.31%; + 0.23 percentage points), which improves two positions: the Canary Islands (1.29%), which is behind it, although the percentage reduction is one hundred, the Balearic Islands (0.99%) which is almost down in ten points (0.99%).Navarre (0.92%), where there is a slight improvement (+0.15 p.p.), and Asturias (0.81%; + 0.09 p.p.).

At the bottom of the ranking there are communities that do not reach 0.50% of expression: La Rioja (0.49%; -0.04 p.p.), which leaves the last place in the ranking, and Extremadura (0.46%; -0.09 p.p.) which is now last in the autonomous division.Only the municipalities of Ceuta and Melilla are represented in the ranking, with 0.01% of employees posted in all of Spain.

Adecco Infoempleo 2024 report: supply and demand for jobs in Spain

Sectors and areas most in need of professional training

Last year, the new job offer for VET graduates in Spain was more focused on the manufacturing and technical sectors, especially in industry, construction and logistics, which are growing compared to more general services.This represents a transition to an economic model that values ​​practical technical skills more and aligns with digitization, automation and maintenance processes.

For the fourth year in a row, services remain the leader in the sectoral distribution of published job offers with vocational graduates, although it has reduced its presence from a concentrated 23.97% in 2023 to 18.38% in 2024, which is five and a half years (five years).This shows some slowdown in some of the sub-sectors involved.

In contrast, the industrial sector leads the highest growth (+5.36 p.m.) and is in second place with 10.43% of published offers.The strong reactivation of this activity in the last year due to re-industrialisation, automation and the need for specialized technical profiles has doubled its weight in the demand for vocational training graduates.

The third position is construction (6.65%), during the past year the demand for technical jobs has increased three degrees (electricians, architects, installers ...).Next is metallurgy, minerals and steel, with 6.56% (+0.38 pp.) Of proposals for professional training presentations.And the transport and data management sector closes the top five (6.03%), increased to three points by 2023.

Other sectors that have increased the number of vacancies for vocational training candidates are Trade and Distribution (4.22%; +2.16 p.p.), Food, Beverage and Tobacco (4.53%; +0.81 p.p.), Pharmacy and Hospital Supplies (2.91%; +0.62 p.p.), Restaurants (2.91%; +0.62 p.p.).+0.50 p.p.) and Insurance (1.49%; +0.28 p.p.) p.p.) and automobiles (4.30%; +0.25 p.p.).

In contrast, the sectors where the supply of vocational training decreased, apart from services, were IT (5.33%; -0.96 p.p.), real estate (2.16%; -1.21 p.p., another significant year-on-year decrease) and education/training (2.12%; -0.91 p.p.).

Adecco Infoempleo Report 2024: Job offer and demand in Spain

In terms of work areas, engineering and production continue to be in demand for professional education graduates, growing and increasing with 35.56% of offers (+3.11 p.p. year-on-year), followed by administration and secretarial services (+21.53%; +3.57 p.p., the largest increase over the previous year), and transport advanced by 2%.increase).

Trade and commerce remains the fourth sector with the most places for vocational education students (9.21%; -0.29 p.p.).This year, the top 5 customer services are closed (5.73%; -0.13 p.p.).

The functional sector that saw the biggest decline in new deals over the past year was technology, information technology and telecommunications, which lost 9.77 percentage points in representation and remained at 1.92% of new positions.

Adecco Infoempleo Report 2024: Labor supply and demand in Spain

Vocational education profiles with the most vacancies

According to professional category, the number of offers aimed at technicians with this training is still high (50.63%) and has increased by more than one point in the last year.The second place in the distribution of offers is occupied by the category of personnel (39.40%), which also increases in weight (+0.59 points).

The only vacancies that have reduced their presence in the KB sector are those intended for Middle Management (-1.69 percentage points).They now represent 9.41%.The demand for jobs requiring professional training for management positions remains stable (nearly 0.55% of the total).

For specific jobs, the business profession is the most demand this year in offers that require professional training.The country is not only top the rankings with 6.22% vacancies, but also experienced the largest percentage increase of the year (+3.22 percentage points).

Management dropped to second place, although maintaining similar values ​​to the previous year and receiving 5.99% of vocational training provision.In third place are Maintenance Engineers (5.58%), the profile with the second highest year-on-year increase, of 1.74 points.And in the fourth place are Operators, 1.68 p.p. who have been accepted, and now they are in 4.32% of the vacancies in FP.

Other jobs for which these degrees are required include electromechanical maintenance technicians, accountants, mechanical maintenance technicians, administrative assistants, support technicians, customer service technicians, warehouse workers, or quality technicians.

Adecco Infoempleo 2024 report: Supply and demand for jobs in Spain