Background

Over the past two years, we’ve heard a recurring concern from job board executives across Europe: LinkedIn’s usage is rising, and with it, the competitive pressure. Traditionally, Indeed has been seen as the primary rival for job boards in the EU, while LinkedIn was often treated a bit as an afterthought —even though it has long been an established, strong player in the market.

To put these concerns into perspective, we decided to investigate whether LinkedIn’s continued growth is real, and which national job board markets are most exposed. Our analysis combines the European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA) transparency data with employment statistics from Eurostat.

Findings

The results confirm what many executives have sensed: LinkedIn usage is accelerating.

• Monthly active, logged-in users in the EU grew from 45.2 million in the first half of 2023 to 54.7 million per month in the first half of 2025.

• That’s a 21% increase over two years—and a 5% increase between 2024 and 2025 alone.

Growth patterns vary significantly across Europe. The DACH region, as well as Eastern and Southern Europe, have shown above-average increases.

When comparing logged-in LinkedIn users to the total employed population, LinkedIn’s strongest foothold is clearly in North-Western Europe.

Note: Eurostat data, total employment, from 20 to 64 years

Country Highlights

France and Belgium stand out for two reasons:

1. Both already had above-average LinkedIn penetration.

2. Both also experienced above-average growth in recent years.

This puts domestic job boards in these markets under heightened pressure—especially since Indeed is already the #1 platform among active job seekers in both countries.

Source: Intelligence Group 2025

Market share is calculated as % of all mentioned job boards in a country (unprompted) that were either Indeed and/or LinkedIn. For this research, a total of 212,812 people were surveyed over the last 2 years by Intelligence Group.