Antwerpruns on a handful of strong industries. If you’re job-hunting or weighing a move, here’s where the opportunities (and the big-name employers) are.
Top industries & employers
Port, shipping & logistics
Port of Antwerp-Bruges, MSC, Katoen Natie, DP World, PSA Antwerp
Europe's second-largest port after Rotterdam, and the single biggest employer in the region — the port complex stretches more than twenty kilometres north of the city toward the Dutch border.
Chemicals & petrochemicals
BASF Antwerpen, INEOS, TotalEnergies, Covestro, Evonik, Borealis
The largest integrated chemical cluster in Europe and the second largest in the world after Houston. BASF's Antwerp site is the company's biggest anywhere outside Ludwigshafen.
Diamonds & precious stones
Antwerp World Diamond Centre, hundreds of trading houses around Hoveniersstraat
The historic centre of the global rough diamond trade, and a sector under real pressure: after the G7 and EU ban on Russian stones took effect on 1 January 2024, rough imports fell about 35% and total trade dropped roughly a quarter to $24.4 billion, easing only through the second half of 2025.
Fashion & design
MoMu, the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Dries Van Noten, Ann Demeulemeester, Essentiel
The Antwerp Six put the Royal Academy's fashion department on the map in the 1980s, and the school still draws applicants globally — its graduation show is a fixture of the international fashion calendar.
Life sciences & pharma
Janssen Pharmaceutica (Beerse), Agfa, University of Antwerp research groups
Janssen's original site at Beerse, half an hour east, is one of Belgium's largest pharmaceutical research operations, and the university's vaccine and tropical medicine work is internationally significant.
Retail, trade & creative services
Ackermans & van Haaren, Colruyt and Delhaize supply operations, agencies and studios in Het Zuid
Antwerp has punched above its weight commercially since the sixteenth century, and the Meir remains one of the busiest shopping streets in Europe by footfall.
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