The number of bootcamp students in Spain has nearly quadrupled in the last three years

• Over half the students who take part at a bootcamp find work within three months. Startups, consultancies and IT companies are the main recruiters.
• 74% of all bootcamp activity is concentrated in the cities of Barcelona and Madrid.
• Bootcamps are an exception to the lack of gender diversity in technological training. In 2021, 36% percent of enrolled students were women.

13 April, 2021

Barcelona, 13 April 2021. –Bootcamps are short educational programmes currently in a phase of intense growth and expansion. This is one of the conclusions reached by the ‘Talent and bootcamps’ study, promoted by Mobile World Capital Barcelona in collaboration with the Ministry for Digital Policy and Public Administration of the Regional Government of Catalonia as part of the Barcelona Digital Talent alliance. The report, which is the first of its kind on bootcamps in Spain, was presented this morning by Carlos Grau, CEO of Mobile World Capital Barcelona; Daniel Marco, Director General of Innovation and Digital Economy at the Regional Government of Catalonia; Jordi Arrufí, Mobile World Capital Barcelona Director of digital talent and spokesman for Barcelona Digital Talent. The presentation was also attended by Laura Fernández, CEO and Co-founder of AllWomen.tech; Gonzalo Manrique, CEO of Ironhack and Jared Gil, CEO and co-founder of Nuclio Digital School.

The study was designed as the first ever analysis of bootcamps in Spain with a view to explaining their context, scope and current impact on digital talent. This type of training, which offers an alternative to traditional channels, is addressed to reducing the gap between supply and demand and based on 3- to 12-month programmes that transfer the concept of intensive military training to technological disciplines in which vacancies need to be filled quickly. The report analyses data from 28 training centres of the 35 there are currently in Spain. This figure represents 80% of the market.

There is still a long way to go

Bootcamps were popularized in San Francisco because of Silicon Valley and its intense demand for programmers and specialist profiles. Google, Microsoft and Amazon are emerging as the main recruiters of such talent. In Spain, there were no bootcamps until 2013 but since then they have become a way of gaining a foothold or specializing in STEM skills (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). Most of today’s bootcamps were set up recently. In fact, 86% have been established in the last 5 years.

Bootcamps have been growing steadily since they first appeared. In 2016 and 2019 growth registered historic maximums when up to 6 of these training centres were created. This progress has, however, been checked by the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020, only two new specialized training centres were established. There is currently a total of 35.

The Spanish market is divided into two major training poles. Barcelona and Madrid are the Spanish cities with the highest number of onsite and hybrid bootcamps. The two cities account for a total of 74% of the bootcamp training market. Then come Bilbao and Seville in third and fourth place, respectively. Training is also available in the cities of A Coruña, Zaragoza, Vigo, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and Gijón.

A diverse offering

The study reveals just how diverse the intensity and duration of the training available is. To a larger or lesser extent, onsite training is still being given as a basis for the bootcamps’ educational programmes. Only 4% of centres offer fully online training. Onsite work and the construction of a classroom community are key aspects of this type of training. Online training meanwhile fulfils the need to study from home and to extend the bootcamp’s area of action to different regions.

The training available answers multiple demands. Centres therefore offer broad catalogues of courses. High demand for bootcamp training is evident in the fact that 62% of courses last for fewer than 6 months.

Web development is the area of training offered most among the bootcamps. 89.3% of the centres run training courses in this digital skill. Data Science and Machine Learning come in second place and are available at 50% of the bootcamps, followed by UX/UI Design skills, which are offered at 32.1% of the centres. Other major areas are Cybersecurity (17.8%) and Mobile Development (10.7%).

The academic offering of the bootcamps also includes Agile, SCRUM and Clean Code, among other skills. Digital skills are closely associated with knowledge of programming languages. The languages mainly available at the centres are Java Script (85.7%), followed by HTML (78.6%) and Python (57.1%).

Bootcamp talent trainee profiles

Bootcamp enrolment numbers are increasing year by year. The programmes have grown constantly since 2018. There was growth of 62.3% in 2019 and of 36.1% in 2020, while student numbers rose from 4,585 to 6,240. Despite the current circumstances, which are very much conditioned by the pandemic, centres forecast that the number of students enrolled at the bootcamps will increase. The number of students enrolled at centres offering bootcamps is expected to grow by 74.7% in 2021 to 10,901. This reflects a growth of nearly fourfold in just three years.

As for the origin of the enrolled profiles, 82% of students have sought training in a personal capacity while 18% come from business/corporate training. According to sector sources such as Course Report, the trend for growth of the business/corporate training segment on the United States and Canada markets suggests it will become more common in coming years.

53.4% of the students enrolled at Spain’s bootcamps are between 25 and 35 years old. 35 to 45 year-olds account for 19.2% of students. Training at bootcamps oriented to retraining and specialization through Lifelong Learning and ongoing education attracts senior professionals.

Bootcamps are an exception to the lack of gender diversity in technological training, in which men occupy 83.5% of jobs, according to data from the Digital Talent Overview 2020 report. In 2020, women accounted for 36% of students enrolled at bootcamps and men 64% and it is envisaged that in 2021, 40% of total students will be women. These data reveal swift progress towards gender parity. Some centres, such as Allwomen.tech, Adalab and Codeop, focus their training exclusively on women.

High employability and turnover

Most students from the bootcamps find work within 90 days. After completing the course, over half the students trained at the bootcamps (55%) find employment within three months. The employability rate of students trained at bootcamps rises to 77% within six months of completing the training. The main recruiters include startups, consultancies and large IT companies.

In Spain as a whole, turnover from the bootcamps has risen constantly over the last 4 years. Turnover in the sector shot up in the last two years and grew by 75.7% in 2019 and 26.7% in 2020. Despite the pandemic, it is estimated that turnover from these programmes will grow by 71.3% in 2021 and reach a figure of over 45 million euros. What is interesting is that 8.6% of the market concentrates 42% of turnover, which prompts fragmentation of much of the offering.