Brussels, Belgium / RankWire.AI / – According to a recent study published by the EU agency Eurofound, the European Union is on track to miss its Digital Decade target of having 20 million information and communications technology specialists by 2030. The Emirates News Agency confirmed that despite ongoing efforts to expand employment across the tech industry, the EU is projected to fall short of this ICT goal by 5 million workers. The report, titled IT Sector in Focus: Evolution of the EU Digital Workforce, underscored that the education systems in most member states are unable to keep pace with the rising demand from enterprises for advanced digital skills, pushing European companies to increasingly depend on skilled migration from outside the EU to address critical staffing shortages.
Despite this anticipated shortfall, employment figures within the European digital sector have experienced significant long-term growth over the past decade. Eurofound’s data shows that the number of ICT specialists in the EU increased from 5.6 million in 2011 to 10.3 million in 2024, a rise of 81 percent. During the same period, ICT professionals’ share of overall employment in Europe grew from 3 percent to 5 percent. Nonetheless, annual growth rates of 7 percent to 8 percent are still not enough to bridge the gap needed to reach the 20 million target by 2030, as set by European policymakers.
Wide disparities in tech employment levels remain across different EU member states. Eurofound’s findings show that in 2024, ICT specialists accounted for 8.6 percent of total employment in Sweden, 8 percent in Luxembourg, and 7.8 percent in Finland. Conversely, in Greece, digital specialists made up just 2.5 percent of the workforce, with Romania slightly higher at 2.8 percent. Growth patterns also differed significantly across the region, with Estonia more than doubling its proportion of ICT workers from 3.4 percent to 7.2 percent between 2011 and 2024, while other countries experienced only minimal increases over the same period.
Limited Educational Infrastructure Amplifies Dependence on International Talent
A survey of businesses across the EU revealed that in 2024, 57 percent of firms looking to fill IT positions faced serious recruitment challenges. The most acute shortages are within senior engineering roles and specialized fields such as cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, generative AI, and cloud infrastructure. To fill these critical gaps, companies have increasingly turned to international talent, resulting in the share of ICT specialists born outside the EU rising from 9.2 percent in 2021 to 11.9 percent in 2024.
Gender imbalance remains a significant obstacle to expanding the EU’s digital workforce. Eurofound’s data shows that in 2024, women represented fewer than one in five ICT specialists across the 27 EU member states, with a 19 percent share. Furthermore, gender pay gaps in the broader information and communications sector reached nearly 20 percent in 2022, surpassing the economy-wide average of 13 percent. Researchers from Eurofound noted that the underrepresentation of women leads European industries to operate with less than three-quarters of their potential digital talent pool, which limits diverse perspectives in technology development.
Core Software Sector Growth Highlights Structural Skill Gaps
The report emphasized that although ICT jobs typically offer above-average pay, advanced skills, and high employment quality, these factors alone cannot resolve the ongoing labor deficit. As the EU is projected to fall short of the 2030 ICT employment goal by 5 million, analysts stressed that bridging this gap will require coordinated policy measures aimed at boosting domestic educational capacities and facilitating intra-EU labor mobility. The study’s findings incorporate quantitative data as well as insights from the Network of Eurofound Correspondents and professional analytics from LinkedIn Economic Graph.
European policymakers and industry leaders are under increasing pressure to realign national vocational training programs with future needs of the digital economy. Eurofound concluded that neglecting to address domestic training deficiencies will heighten reliance on external talent markets and threaten broader European digital transformation ambitions. As member states seek to expand local training infrastructure, boost female participation in technical fields, and maintain economic competitiveness globally, ongoing regulatory reviews and workforce development strategies continue to evolve.