Digital nomad essentials

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The Digital Nomad Index: how vegan burgers, flat whites and trainers may help you find tech workers

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Asked to picture a tech worker and many people probably imagine a young, city-living hipster. While this is a stereotype, given the very wide range of people employed in tech roles, considering some of the products and services this type of worker may want from the place they live can be an indicator of where tech occupiers should look to find the best talent.

That’s why we created the Digital Nomad Essentials Index in our Tech Cities 2021 programme. The Index (below) uses proxies – the cost of a flat white, a vegan burger, an Apple MacBook, fast broadband, flexible office space, a pair of classic trainers, premium headphones and clean air – as some of the likely attributes and products you might find alongside a young tech worker.

By scoring each of our Tech Cities on these elements, we identified that Melbourne in Australia, Eindhoven in the Netherlands, and Seattle in the US are the top three cities around the world for young digital nomads.

 

 

While a few of the items in the index are a little tongue-in-cheek, others such as having access to affordable flexible workspace and fast broadband are a lot more universal and essential to tech workers being able to do their jobs.

Even before Covid-19 those in the tech industry largely had more flexibility to choose where they worked from compared with many other sectors; this is likely to be accentuated in a post-pandemic world, opening up a whole new realm of working locations for staff who have the inclination and resources to live somewhere new.

Identifying which locations have the features that appeal to these workers, as we do in the Index, will therefore be critical to tech companies making relocation decisions with a view to finding and retaining the best staff.

 

Further information

Contact Paul Tostevin

Read more: Savills Tech Cities

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