Portugal isn’t just a country with great cuisine and an all-year-round splendid weather (although we’ll start with that). It’s also a paradise for startups and an ecosystem that is ideal for technological development. It’s also one of the few places in Europe where you’re guaranteed to find the best value for money for your business, from tech talent to everything else. So let’s dig a little deeper:
👋🏻 Portuguese people are nice
Portugal’s population is made of warm, welcoming people. You can easily find someone to help you on the street as the majority of the population understands and speaks English (and some will probably understand if you speak Spanish or French as well) — it’s no coincidence that Portugal ranked #7 out of 100 countries in the English Proficiency Index of last year.
🌅 Sunshine for days (literally)
Lisbon is known to be the sunniest european capital city, enjoying a dazzling 2,799 hours of sunshine per year, and an annual average temperature of 21ºC. I know you’re also supposed to work here, but at least you work in great weather 😉 Besides, it’s nice to be somewhere with more than 850kms of sandy beaches, 9 centuries of history and 17 UNESCO World Heritage sites.
🍛 All. the. food.
There’s no way we talk about Portugal’s affectionate people and incredible weather, without at least mentioning the gastronomy. We Portuguese people have a special place in our hearts for food and we can definitely hold our liquor (just figuratively; we much prefer wine and beer).
Talking about Portuguese cuisine could literally merit a book or, at least, a small thesis, but let’s just say you have plenty to savour here: the enormous collection of regional cheeses, port wine, draft beer, the fish (and our famous bacalhau!), Belém’s pastéis de nata (custard tarts), the great enchidos (we invite you to google-image that) and. So. much. More. And the best part: food here is cheap! First of all, our average beer price is the cheapest compared to Barcelona, Rome, London, Paris and Dublin. Second, a regular espresso rarely costs more than 1€ in Lisbon, and if you’re in other parts of the country, it’s possible you’ll only get charged 0,50€ cents. And third, you can have a menu do dia (lunch menu) for 5 to 12€ — and often drink or coffee included!
🔒 It’s the safest country in Europe
It’s no small feat to be the 3rd safest country in the world. In fact, we’re topped only by Iceland and New Zealand, which means we’re the safest country in Europe — a continent with centuries of bloody history and political turmoil. Portugal’s political climate has been stable for years and has some of the lowest crime rates in the continent. If this isn’t reason enough to convince you, we don’t know what is.
🌍 An Atlantic hub
One of our great advantages is sharing the same timezone as London (the only exception being the unique island of Azores). We benefit from a unique positioning, standing in between Europe and the Americas. Besides, we have excellent flight connections from Lisbon and Porto to any major country or capital — we’re 8 hours away from New York, Montreal or Toronto, and the longest you’ll take to reach any european capital is 4 hours.
👨🏻💻 The tech talent pool is thriving
Onto the more serious stuff now. The portuguese tech talent pool is no joke (no pun intended). We graduate 7 000 ICT professionals every year and local faculties, like IST, FCT-UNL and FEUP, churn out great developers yearly as well. Don’t be surprised to find that some of the greatest employees working at global IT companies are Portuguese.
Our recent study has shown that informal education is gaining more momentum and credibility, fortunately. However undeniably important university degrees are, self-teaching and coding bootcamps are a thing of the future and luckily, the options are several — schools like Le Wagon, Ironhack, Academia de Código, Wild Code School, and the list goes on.
You’ll also realize we’re probably the country with one of the most cost-effective options for your business. Our workforce is highly skilled and significantly less expensive than most Western european countries. The average gross annual salary for a developer in Portugal is 25 000€.
🚀 Startup and tech haven
Portugal has increasingly become a fertile environment for startups, with a thriving local support network — Startup Lisboa, ANJE, Beta-i, UPTEC, IPN, just to name a few. In the Doing Business 2020 report, we were considered the second-best South european country to do business in.
Tech Hiring Conference, Landing.Jobs
Described as the most important tech event in the world, the annual technology conference Web Summit has inevitably put Portugal on the map ever since coming to Lisbon in 2016. It brings in tens of thousands of participants from all over the world.
Creative and coworking spaces are becoming trendier by the day and Lisbon and Porto have been unmistakably joining the bandwagon in full force. LACS, Second Home, Impact Hub and Hub Criativo do Beato are just some of the few you can access in the capital, while up north you have Typographia Cowork, Porto i/o, OPO’Lab, UPTEC, and many more. Besides, setting up office in Portugal is significantly cheaper than London, Paris or Dublin — in 2019, the average rental sqm price per year was reported to be less than half than those cities.
Typographia Cowork, Porto
The eBook we just recently “re-launched”, Hiring in Portugal, explains is much greater detail all the possibilities Portugal has to offer as a country open for business. Most importantly — it’s entirely free. Startups, corporations, tech leaders and entrepreneurs can benefit from it and use it as a leveraging tool to launch themselves into the Portuguese market.
Also, the official launch of the eBook will happen on Tuesday, online, and the registrations are free and open for everyone. We’ll have Cloudflare’s CTO and Volkswagen DS’s Managing Director discussing their experiences hiring and operating in Portugal, the challenges they face and what they appreciate the most. Don’t miss it — you can save your spot here.
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