Greater Madrid has more than 520,000 companies, 16% of the national total (INE-DIRCE).
In particular, its the natural home for big companies: Madrid has 26% of the companies in Spain with 100+ employees. Notably, some of these are big construction companies responsible for significant projects worldwide, such as the Medina-La Meca speed train and the expansion of the Panama Canal.
In order to maintain competitiveness and productivity to international standards, these companies require high value added services, such as engineering, programming and software development, technology consultancy, business advice, human resources, marketing, etc. Madrid’s well-developed economy is focused on this sector.
More than 35% of advanced business services are concentrated in Madrid.
For instance, 22% of the consultancy firms in Spain are here. Looking at only consultancy firms with 100+ employees, it jumps to 50%. Similar numbers are found in advertising, administration and legal services.
Number of services companies in Madrid and Spain
| Group | Companies in Spain | Companies in Madrid | % in Madrid | % in Madrid (companies with more than 100 employees) |
| Business services | 324,620 | 76,880 | 23.7% | 50.1% |
| Education and healthcare | 251,608 | 48,140 | 19.1% | 26.0% |
| Real estate | 168,540 | 31,384 | 18.6% | 53.7% |
| Engineering, architecture, research | 115,783 | 23,787 | 20.5% | 37.1% |
| Other services | 80,469 | 19,553 | 24.3% | 32.7% |
| Financial services | 77,340 | 14,247 | 18.4% | 58.5% |
| Total | 1,018,360 | 213,991 | 21.0% | 36.7% |
Source: Prepared by the authors on the basis of data supplied by INE-DIRCE
Outsourcing and consultancy
Accenture, Capgemini, Deloitte, HP, Indra, Everis, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Unisys
Engineering
AECOM, Ardanuy, Inclam, Intecsa-Inarsa, Prointec, Técnicas Reunidas
Telecommunications
Vodafone, BT, Orange, Telefónica
Software
Microsoft, Google, Oracle, Cisco, Indra
Data centres
Interxion, Colt, Global Switch
Real estate services
Regus, CBRE, JLL, Knight Frank, Blackstone, Cushman & Wakefield, Apollo, Lone Star Funds.
Excellence and services centres
Roche, Ernst & Young, General Electric, Accenture, Atos Origin
Legal services
Crowe Horwath, Dentons, Grant Thornton, KPMG, Osborne Clarke, Pérez-Llorca, Garrigues, Uría Menéndez
Construction and turnkey projects
Sacyr, OHL, Ferrovial, Acciona, ACS
Latin American HQs in Madrid
Highlights: Accenture innovation centre opened in 2018. Telefónica’s headquarters worldwide. Diverse organizations from British Telecom to Vistra have their Latin American HQs in Madrid. Large building companies headquartered here are responsible for some of the biggest projects in the world, such as the high speed train Medina-Mecca or the current Panama Canal expansion.
