The research and innovation workforce continues to expand across the OECD

The professional science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM)  workforce has continued to grow across OECD and EU economies, according to the latest data from the Research and Innovation Careers Observatory (ReICO). The share of science and engineering (S&E) professionals rose from 3.2 to 3.7% of total employment across OECD countries between 2017 and 2024. Information and communication technology (ICT) professionals, comprising software and applications developers and analysts as well as database and network professionals, rose from 2.0 to 3.1% on average across OECD economies. 

ReICO, a joint OECD-EU initiative, charts the development, labour market footprint and circulation of the research and innovation (R&I) workforce across more than 50 countries. It views that workforce through two complementary lenses. One counts people by occupation: the STEM workforce of S&E and ICT professionals. The other counts by function: R&D personnel, the researchers, technicians and support staff who work on R&D whatever their occupation. The two overlap but do not coincide, since many STEM professionals do not work on R&D, and not all R&D personnel are STEM professionals. The 2026 ReICO hub update expands the set of indicators on the R&I workforce relative to the 2025 beta release, and for the first time includes measures of the professional STEM workforce, drawn from labour force and population census, alongside established and experimental indicators. 

Combined, S&E and ICT professionals represent about 7% of total employment across OECD and EU economies. These occupations require high levels of scientific and technical expertise, and while not all of them directly perform R&D, they contribute to the capacity of economies to develop, adopt, apply and diffuse new knowledge and innovations. Differences across countries are wide. Among OECD Members, the combined share of S&E and ICT professionals exceeds 10% in Finland, Israel, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Sweden, but falls below 3% in Colombia, Mexico and Türkiye. It is lower still across some partner economies covered by ReICO, below 2% in Argentina, India, Indonesia and Peru. 

The same countries with the largest STEM workforce also tend to be the most ICT-intensive. On average in the OECD and EU, the share of S&E professionals still exceeds that of ICT professionals, but the reverse holds in a handful of economies, most markedly in Sweden and the United States, and also in Israel, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. 

R&D draws on the STEM workforce, but only a fraction of STEM professionals works directly on R&D, and other occupations contribute to it as well, like lab technicians, product designers and administrative support staff. By 2024, the total workforce dedicated to R&D, measured in full-time equivalents (FTE), reached almost 1.6% of total employment on average across the OECD. 

Following the Frascati Manual, OECD estimates of R&D personnel capture the sum of personnel under three functional categories: R&D researchers, R&D technicians and other R&D support staff. Researchers are not only scientific researchers but also R&D professionals, including managers and engineers, engaged in the design and oversight of R&D activities and projects across all sectors. From 2015 to 2024, the share of researchers increased from 0.8% to 1.1% in the average OECD country.  

OECD R&D workforce statistics draw on official business and organisational surveys conducted by national statistical organisations, reported within the OECD Main Science and Technology Indicators (MSTI) and in more detail in the OECD R&D Statistics database. The STEM occupation measures draw on a different source: labour force and population census data, classified by the International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO). Unlike MSTI, the estimates presented above are based on unweighted averages across countries with available data, but where weighted averages can also be calculated the trends coincide and the differences between OECD and EU averages are negligible.

Differences in R&D personnel intensity, the share of R&D personnel in total employment, are almost as wide as differences in R&D expenditure intensity reported in the OECD Main Science and Technology Indicators, reflecting the importance of direct labour inputs to the R&D effort of firms and organisations. Among countries with data covering the whole economy, only five exceed 2% R&D personnel intensity: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland and Korea. 

The composition of the R&D workforce also varies. On average, researchers make up 68% of R&D personnel across the OECD and the EU, ranging from 88% in Sweden to 55% in Switzerland. Among the partner economies in the database, the People's Republic of China (hereafter "China") reports a share of 42%, the only economy in the database where researchers account for less than half of R&D personnel.

The ReICO hub offers a broader picture of R&I workforce capacity, development and circulation across countries. The 2026 edition updates over 400 indicators from the 2025 beta release, widens coverage of the employment conditions of the most highly qualified, and adds new indicators on their quality of life. Further additions include expanded data on the financial resources available for R&D personnel across sectors, and new indicators on the education profile of persons employed in innovative firms.  

Journalists are invited to contact Elisabeth Schoeffmann in the OECD Media Office (+33 1 45 24 81 18). For questions on the data, please contact ReICO@OECD.org.