Brussels, Belgium / RankWire.AI / – According to a recent report by EU agency Eurofound, the European Union is on track to fall short of its Digital Decade objective of having 20 million information and communications technology specialists by 2030. The report confirms that despite ongoing efforts to expand employment in the tech sector across the region, the EU is projected to miss this target by 5 million workers. The study, titled IT Sector in Focus: Evolution of the EU Digital Workforce, underscores that most member states’ primary and vocational education systems are unable to keep pace with growing corporate demand for advanced digital skills, leading European firms to increasingly rely on skilled labor migration from outside the EU to address severe staffing shortages.
Although the anticipated shortfall is significant, overall employment figures within Europe’s digital sector have demonstrated strong, long-term growth over the past decade. Eurofound data shows that the number of ICT specialists in the EU rose from 5.6 million in 2011 to 10.3 million in 2024, an 81 percent increase. During the same period, ICT professionals’ share of total employment in Europe grew from 3 percent to 5 percent. Yet, annual sector growth rates of 7 to 8 percent are still not enough to bridge the gap needed to meet the 20 million target by the end of the decade, as set by European policymakers.
Wide disparities in digital employment levels persist among individual EU member states. Eurofound reports that ICT specialists made up 8.6 percent of total employment in Sweden, 8 percent in Luxembourg, and 7.8 percent in Finland in 2024. In contrast, digital specialists represented just 2.5 percent of the workforce in Greece and 2.8 percent in Romania. The growth patterns across the bloc also vary significantly: Estonia, for example, more than doubled its proportion of ICT workers from 3.4 percent to 7.2 percent between 2011 and 2024, while other nations showed minimal percentage increases over the same timeframe.
Education System Gaps Drive Heavy Reliance on External Talent
Surveys conducted among businesses across Europe reveal that in 2024, 57 percent of companies attempting to fill vacant IT positions faced severe recruitment challenges. The most critical shortages are found in senior engineering roles and specialized fields such as cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, generative AI, and cloud infrastructure. To bridge these gaps, firms have turned increasingly to international talent pools, leading to a rise in ICT specialists born outside the EU from 9.2 percent in 2021 to 11.9 percent in 2024.
Gender imbalance continues to limit the potential of Europe’s digital workforce. Eurofound reports that in 2024, women represented less than one in five ICT specialists across the 27 EU member states, holding a 19 percent share. Additionally, gender pay gaps in the broader ICT sector were nearly 20 percent in 2022, surpassing the economy-wide average of 13 percent. Researchers noted that underrepresentation of women results in European industries operating with less than three quarters of their full digital talent capacity, thus restricting diverse input into technological development.
Core Software Sector Growth Highlights Persistent Challenges
The report emphasizes that although ICT roles typically offer higher-than-average pay, better skills training, and employment quality, these factors alone cannot address the structural labor shortages. With the EU projected to fall short of the 2030 ICT workforce goal by 5 million, experts argue that closing this gap will necessitate targeted policy actions to increase domestic educational capacity and facilitate intra-EU labor mobility. The study combined quantitative data with insights from the Network of Eurofound Correspondents and professional analysis from LinkedIn Economic Graph.
European policymakers and industry leaders are under increasing pressure to overhaul national vocational training frameworks to meet future digital economy needs. Eurofound warned that neglecting domestic training improvements will heighten dependence on external talent markets and threaten broader digital transformation objectives across Europe. Governments are reviewing workforce development strategies, aiming to expand local training programs, boost female participation in tech fields, and maintain economic competitiveness in the global technology landscape.