Beijingruns on a handful of strong industries. If you’re job-hunting or weighing a move, here’s where the opportunities (and the big-name employers) are.
Top industries & employers
Technology & internet
ByteDance, Baidu, Xiaomi, Meituan, JD.com, Kuaishou
Beijing, not Shenzhen, is China's consumer internet capital. Zhongguancun in Haidian is the original cluster and ByteDance's headquarters here is one of the largest technology employers in the world.
Government, policy & state enterprise
State ministries, the central SOEs, the major regulators
Almost every Chinese ministry, regulator and centrally-administered state enterprise is headquartered here. It is the reason so much foreign business maintains a Beijing office regardless of where its revenue is.
Finance & central banking
People's Bank of China, ICBC, Bank of China, CITIC, the securities regulator
Financial Street in Xicheng holds the regulators and the head offices of the big state banks, which makes Beijing the policy centre of Chinese finance even as Shanghai holds the markets.
Higher education & research
Tsinghua University, Peking University, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beihang
The densest concentration of top universities and state research institutes in China, and the main reason foreign researchers and postdocs end up in Haidian.
Media, culture & diplomacy
CCTV, Xinhua, China Daily, the diplomatic corps, international NGOs
Beijing hosts every embassy in China and the state media apparatus, which supports an unusual concentration of foreign journalists, translators, diplomats and cultural institutions.
Aerospace & advanced manufacturing
AVIC, CASC, China Academy of Space Technology, Beijing Automotive
China's space and aviation programmes are administered and largely engineered from Beijing, with a supplier and research base that extends across Haidian and Fengtai.
Some of this may be out of date. Spotted something inaccurate? Help us keep it right for the next newcomer.