Porto TERA — municipal strategy to attract, develop and retain talent

Porto TERA (Talent, Evolve, Retain and Attract) is Porto's integrated municipal talent strategy, launched in 2022 by the Câmara Municipal do Porto with an annual budget of approximately €400,000. It coordinates three axes: attracting skilled workers through labour-market intelligence, developing talent by linking workers, academia and companies, and retaining people through career-progression support.

The 'Porto. for Talent' digital platform anchors the strategy, alongside skills programmes such as Porto Skills Academy and 42 programming courses, work-placement schemes including Porto Summer Academy and Summer oPORTOnities, and inclusion-focused strands such as Porto_4_All for migrants and (D) for Efficiency for job-seekers with disabilities, running annually since 2019.

Since 2022 the platform has logged 433,000+ visits and 124,000 job applications. Porto Skills Academy grew from an inaugural cohort to 2,260 digital-skills learners, and the Ensico@Porto computer-science programme grew from 75 to 1,970 students. Summer oPORTOnities engages 1,450 jobseekers and 837 companies annually, and Porto_4_All reports 73% of its 56 trained migrants moving into employment, from a baseline of 82% unemployed. TERA won the Talent category at the Eurocities Awards 2024.

TERA illustrates how a mid-sized European city can bundle job-matching, skills training, work placements and inclusion programmes under a single branded strategy on a modest municipal budget, with external recognition from the Eurocities network supporting its transferability claim.