Skills in online job advertisements (OJAs) transforms online job posting data into meaningful labour market insights to uncover in-demand skills and occupations and generate actionable labour market intelligence.
Background and scope of project
The growth of online job platforms has created unprecedented opportunities to analyse real-time labour market data. Recognizing this potential, Cedefop launched in 2015 a big data initiative to systematically collect and analyse online job advertisements across Europe. With the vital contribution of Eurostat’s Web Intelligence Hub, Cedefop provides almost real-time labour market and skills intelligence via analysing hundreds of millions of OJAs in Europe (see ‘Methodology’ below). The data are presented via ‘Skills OVATE’, Cedefop’s online tool for analysing OJA-derived insights (see ’Skills OVATE & data refresh cycle’ below).
Methodology
Data mining, natural language processing and analytical methods are applied to extract meaningful labour market insights from online job postings collected via Eurostat's Web Intelligence Hub. Existing classification frameworks, including the European Skills, Competences, Qualifications and Occupations (ESCO) and NACE, are leveraged to enable the systematic analysis of skills requirements, sectoral and occupational and demand, while additional taxonomies have been developed to monitor more focused cases of the labour market (e.g., digital and green skills). The integration with existing skills intelligence sources ensures comprehensive and reliable insights for policy formulation in education, training, and employment. For more information on our methodology, see our latest report and the ‘Explore further’ section below.
Skills OVATE & data refresh cycle
Skills Online Vacancy Analysis Tool for Europe (Skills OVATE) delivers comprehensive skills intelligence by aggregating data across the 27 EU member states, EFTA countries (Norway, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and Iceland), and the UK. Each quarterly update incorporates the most current job posting data to track emerging skills demands, occupational shifts, and sectoral developments across European markets, presenting labour market statistics and trends covering the most recent four-quarter period. Skills OVATE generates valuable and near real-time insights about the demand in skills, occupations and sectors across countries, regions and time, and complements Cedefop’s toolkit of well-established sources of labour market intelligence, such as the Skills Intelligence, the European skills forecast, the Short-term anticipation of skills trends and VET demand, the European skills index, and the European skills and jobs survey.
Explore further
- Visualise/access our data: Skills OVATE (link)
- Access to detailed data is managed by Eurostat (email: ESTAT-WIH@ec.europa.eu)
- Read about our methodology and explore examples of policy-relevant insights:
- Delivering evidence from online job advertisements: Tapping into 10 years of experience (research paper)
- Tracking the green transition in labour markets (policy brief)
- Going digital means skilling for digital (policy brief)
- The feasibility of using online job advertisements in analysing unmet EU demand (working paper)
- Assessing the representativeness of online job advertisements (working paper)
- Check out our 2025 events: