Utrechtruns 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
Health & life sciences
UMC Utrecht, Princess Máxima Center, Wilhelmina Children's Hospital, Hubrecht Institute, RIVM
Utrecht Science Park is the largest single employment site in the province. All Dutch childhood cancer care is centralised at the Princess Máxima Center — the largest paediatric oncology centre in Europe — which sits on the same campus as the academic hospital.
Rail & mobility
NS, ProRail, Movares, Arriva Nederland operations
Both Dutch Railways and the national infrastructure manager are headquartered in Utrecht, for the obvious reason that everything passes through here. ProRail sits in the Inktpot, the largest brick building in the Netherlands.
Banking, insurance & pensions
Rabobank, a.s.r., Achmea operations, Van Lanschot Kempen
Rabobank's headquarters is the tallest building in the city and the co-operative bank's centre of gravity nationally. The insurance and pension cluster around it gives Utrecht a substantial actuarial labour market.
IT services & consulting
Capgemini Nederland, Sopra Steria, Info Support, Cegeka
Central geography made Utrecht the natural base for consultancies whose staff work at client sites all over the country — a large, well-paid and unusually commutable employment layer that is easy to overlook.
Higher education & research
Utrecht University, Hogeschool Utrecht, HKU, Universiteit voor Humanistiek
Utrecht University is the largest in the Netherlands by enrolment and consistently the country's highest-ranked. Around one in six people in the city is a student, which shapes the housing market more than any other single factor.
Events, media & the creative sector
Jaarbeurs, TivoliVredenburg, Netherlands Film Festival, HKU games and animation studios
The Jaarbeurs is the largest exhibition complex in the country and sits directly beside Centraal. HKU's games and animation programmes feed a small but real studio scene across the Randstad.
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