Budapestruns 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
Automotive & engineering
Audi, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Bosch, Continental, Knorr-Bremse, ThyssenKrupp
Hungary is one of Europe's most automotive-dependent economies per head; the plants are outside Budapest but the engineering, R&D and shared-service headcount is concentrated here.
Shared services & business process
BP, Morgan Stanley, Citi, BlackRock, ExxonMobil, Vodafone, Diageo
Budapest hosts one of the largest concentrations of multinational shared service centres in Europe, hiring heavily for German, French, Nordic and Dutch language skills alongside English.
Software & IT
LogMeIn/GoTo, Prezi, Ustream, EPAM, NNG, Cisco, IBM
Prezi and Ustream both came out of Budapest, and NNG's navigation software ships in a large share of the world's car dashboards — a small but genuinely product-led scene.
Pharmaceuticals & life sciences
Richter Gedeon, Egis, Sanofi-Chinoin, Teva
Richter Gedeon has operated from Budapest since 1901 and is one of central Europe's largest independent pharmaceutical companies, with a substantial research operation in the city.
Banking & finance
OTP Bank, MBH Bank, K&H, Erste, Raiffeisen, UniCredit
OTP has grown from the Hungarian savings bank into a regional group operating across a dozen countries, and its Budapest headquarters is the largest financial employer in the country.
Film production
Origo Studios, Korda Studios, National Film Institute
Hungary's production tax rebate has made Budapest one of Europe's busiest shooting locations, standing in for Berlin, Moscow, Paris and Buenos Aires in a steady stream of international productions.
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