When incoming President Emmanuel Macron posed with two iPhones for his official portrait, he was making a clear statement about putting France on the digital map. With the foundation of tech hubs like Sophia Antipolis, established in the 1970s to draw high-tech industries to the South of France, and new initiatives such as Station F, La French Tech, and France Digitale, the country is wasting no time.

France has a strong system of technical universities and is also home to leading IT companies that provide software to the defence, banking, and service sectors such as Atos, Dassault Systèmes, SopraSteria, Cegedim, and Thales. The software industry in France directly contributed €39.4 billion to the economy in 2016 — up 6.4 percent from 2014 — and more than €115.1 billion in total.

In addition, France spent €2.6 billion on software R&D in 2013 — the latest available data.

Europe’s largest economy, Germany is the continent’s manufacturing powerhouse and recognised worldwide for its motor industry, precision engineering, and chemicals expertise. The German economy isn’t just driven by global names like Siemens, Daimler, and BASF, but also the wide range of SMEs that supply them, or are world leaders for a specific niche product, known as the Mittelstand.

These smaller companies are increasingly using software to improve manufacturing techniques, integrate their products with the internet of things (IoT), or just make more effective use of data for a better customer experience.

Germany is also home to major software companies like SAP, Maxon, and Software AG. The software industry directly contributed €66 billion to the German economy in 2016, up 6 percent from 2014. Within the EU, it is second only to the UK in terms of this metric. Germany spent €2.9 billion on R&D in 2015, the latest available data. In addition, Germany’s software industry paid the highest direct annual wages from the countries surveyed.

Italy is a global reference for luxury goods, fine wine, and tourism, but the EU’s fourth-largest economy is also home to a growing software industry. This supports other GDP generators such as automotive engineering, machine manufacturing, and aerospace, as well as the country’s large agricultural sector. Italy is also home to plenty of SMEs that specialize in high-end, high-margin products — companies that are increasingly using software to manage accounting, inventory, and customer relations.

Large multinationals are also taking an interest: In 2016, Cisco said it would invest $100 million in supporting Italy’s digital acceleration through a two-fold approach that focuses on increasing students’ digital skills and fostering innovative tech startups.

The software industry in Italy directly contributed €22.9 billion to value-added GDP, up an impressive 12.7 percent from 2014. That puts the sector’s contribution some way behind the UK, Germany, and France, but still ahead of smaller EU member states. It was also responsible for 1.2 percent of total jobs in Italy.

The EU’s sixth-largest economy, the Netherlands has been one of the world’s foremost trading nations for centuries and software is helping support its natural strengths as an exporter. Home to oil and gas giants, banks and insurers, life sciences pioneers as well as a vast food processing industry, many areas exist where software is increasing efficiency. Major software players include TomTom, Bridge Global, and Exact.

The country has a strong digital infrastructure, and, as the government notes in a 2016 paper setting out the country’s digital agenda, “the Netherlands is internationally seen as an interesting place of business for countless ICT-related enterprises, such as data centres, cybersecurity companies, cloud providers, new media providers and telecom companies.”

The software industry in the Netherlands directly contributed €15.5 billion to value-added GDP, rising a remarkable 12.5 percent from 2014. It was also directly responsible for 1.9 percent of total jobs in the country.

Poland had the smallest software industry of the countries surveyed, but it is growing at an impressive pace, with a skyrocketing contribution to GDP, jobs, and wages. Over the past decade, Poland has done a lot to attract technology jobs and start-ups, including numerous back-office roles for multinational companies that involve software design jobs. There’s also plenty of homegrown success stories, thanks to companies like Netguru,10clouds, and Comarch.

The Polish software industry’s direct value-added GDP grew to €6 billion in 2016, up 28.3 percent from 2014. There’s a lot more growing to do: Poland spends the least amount on software R&D across the countries surveyed, investing just €250.5 million in 2015. But investment is just one aspect where things are diverse: whereas Sweden’s software industry is larger than Poland’s in terms of value-add GDP, Poland’s software sector employs more people than Sweden’s.

The European Commission’s most recent Digital Economy and Society Index ranks Sweden as the EU’s second most advanced digital economy, after Denmark, so it’s no surprise that the country’s software industry is flourishing. The Swedish software industry’s direct value-added GDP grew to €16 billion in 2016, up an astounding 43.9 percent from two years earlier. That turbo-charged growth between 2014 and 2016 saw it overtake the Netherlands in terms of direct value-added GDP.

In recent years, Sweden has become known as the “Unicorn Factory” because of the number of tech start-ups with a valuation of more than $1 billion based there. Alongside Spotify, Minecraft developer Mojang, and online payments service iZettle, there are more traditional software groups like Enea, Pelarion, and Acando.

Across the countries surveyed, the Swedish software industry contributes the second largest share of direct value-added GDP, accounting for 3.4 percent of the country’s total. Only the UK beats it, with 3.6 percent. For comparison, in Sweden, the financial and insurance activities sector represents 4.3 percent of value-added GDP and the real estate activities sector represents 8.6 percent.

€16 billion

The UK boasts Europe’s leading software industry, with its vast financial sector and service industry using technology to improve productivity and drive innovation. Tech hubs in major cities, strong relationships with universities, and an open economy have helped companies grow. Big names include Sage, Sophos, Fidessa, and MicroFocus.

The software industry created direct value-added GDP of €85.8 billion in 2016 — up a remarkable 31.5 percent since 2014, and a much larger increase than the industry in Germany (6 percent) or France (6.4 percent). The UK spent just over €2.4 billion on R&D in 2015, the latest available figure.

The British software industry also contributed the largest share of direct value-added GDP as a share of the total economy across the countries surveyed. Indeed, 3.6 percent of the UK’s whole value-added GDP came from software, edging out Sweden (3.4 percent) for the top spot. To put that in perspective, the financial and insurance activities sector in the UK represents 6.7 percent of value-added GDP and the real estate activities sector represents 13.9 percent.