This seventh edition of our Private Equity at Work report continues to improve data coverage on employment in European portfolio companies backed by private equity firms. The report draws data from all European portfolio companies backed by any private equity firm. Information was either collected directly from GPs through the European Data Cooperative, or via trusted third-party sources.
The result is a job creation universe of 15,650 portfolio companies this year, as well as employment data drawing from a sample of 17,992 (allowing for extrapolation to a full universe of 29,338 companies).
As Invest Europe continues to collect data on a yearly basis, the longitudinal aspects of the work begin to bear more fruit. For this reason, the final section features a splitting out of the study of job creation in European portfolio companies from the end of 2017 to the end of 2024. This section provides more context to the shorter timeframe job creation study found in the main body of the report, and allows for a more nuanced view of the effect of private equity ownership over time.
As we continue – year-on-year – to improve data coverage, we advise readers not to compare data points in this report with previous reports. Additionally, we always encourage use of data points found in the latest available version of the report in this series.
Invest Europe prides itself on being transparent about how it reaches its conclusions. We invite all readers to consult our methodology at the end of this report and encourage further queries or feedback on our work to the Research team.
Sample, universe & methodology
Private Equity at Work aims to replace anecdote and rumour with verified facts and data, and broaden isolated examples of employment activity at companies into an industry and Europe-wide story.
This report is based on data collected via the European Data Cooperative directly from 234 GP data contributors based in 25 European countries and active across the continent. Our researchers supplemented those figures with information from annual reports, Moody's analytics and a variety of other sources, including websites and press releases. The data was collected and reviewed by Invest Europe and PEREP Analytics.
The research focuses on the number of people employed by private equity-backed companies in Europe and how many jobs these companies have created in 2024. The goal is to create as accurate a picture as possible of private equity’s role as an employer and job creator across Europe.
Employment sample size
17,992
portfolio companies
studied of which
14,442
were SMEs
(2024 categorisation)
35%
of data came from third
parties (annual reports,
Moody's analytics, other
public sources)
for full methodology
submissions from GP data contributors
Based in
25
European countries
Members active between
2023–2024
Employment
Employment figures refer to the number of employees at private equity-backed companies at the end of 2024. It comprises full-time equivalents, including only those working full or part-time and who have an employment status with the company.
The employment data is drawn from a sample of 17,992 portfolio companies headquartered within Europe (14,442 of which are SMEs). To estimate employment at the European level for this report, we extrapolated1 the sample to cover the 29,338 private equity-backed portfolio companies considered active in 2024 in Europe. Three extrapolation scenarios were produced. We selected scenario two2 as being a conservative enough, sensible and reasonable approach to fairly estimate employment figures at a European level. Figures based on that second scenario are the ones shown throughout this report.
Job creation
Job creation figures3 were produced using a sample including only those portfolio companies headquartered in Europe active and backed by GPs as of the end of 2024. This sample includes 15,650 portfolio companies (12,372 of which were categorised as SMEs in 2024) backed by 3,177 firms.
No extrapolation was performed to the European universe level for the job creation figures. The data is presented in 'net' form, including both job losses and job creation.
To most accurately represent job creation in 2024, inorganic growth – employment increases coming from add-on transactions, or decreases coming from carve-out transactions – was disregarded4. Further, we conducted extensive auditing which resulted in the net effect of the audit process was an addition of 344,429 jobs in the data considered for job creation analysis from 2023-2024 (addition of 1,077,703 and removal of 733,274 employees) from the data. As with employment figures, data was reported at year end. The data includes only those who work full or part-time and have an employment status with the company, and excludes jobs as couriers or contractors.
Job creation sample size
15,650
portfolio companies
studied of which
12,372
were SMEs
(2024 categorisation)
38%
of data came from third
parties (annual reports,
Moody's analytics, other
public sources)
for full methodology
Notes
1. Through segregation of the known sample into 624 categories based on location of portfolio company, sector, and latest stage of investment. See full methodology for details.
2. Involving application of corrected average (excluding maximum employment value in a category from calculated average if value represents more than 60% of the corresponding category total) of known sample (once segregated into 624 categories) to unknown European universe portfolio companies. See full methodology for explanation of all scenarios.
3. See full methodology for explanation of all scenarios.
4. Total add ons during 2024 totalled 70,335 employees and carve outs were -63,699. As a result an increase of 6,636 jobs from 2023–2024 was excluded from the analysis.