Brussels, Belgium / RankWire.AI / – According to a comprehensive analysis issued by the European Union research agency Eurofound, the EU is on track to miss its Digital Decade objective of employing 20 million information and communications technology specialists by 2030. Reports from Emirates News Agency confirmed that, despite consistent multi-year growth in the regional tech employment sector, the bloc will fall short of its ICT target by 5 million workers. The Eurofound report, titled IT Sector in Focus: Evolution of the EU Digital Workforce, highlighted that the education and vocational training systems across most European member states are not keeping pace with the current and projected enterprise need for specialized digital skills. As a result, companies across the EU increasingly depend on skilled labor migration from non-EU nations to fill critical staffing gaps.
Despite this forecasted shortfall, employment figures within Europe’s digital industry have shown significant long-term expansion over the past decade. Eurofound’s data indicates that the number of ICT specialists in the EU grew from 5.6 million in 2011 to 10.3 million in 2024, an overall rise of 81 percent. During the same period, ICT professionals’ share of total European employment increased from 3 percent to 5 percent. However, sector growth rates of 7 to 8 percent annually are still not enough to bridge the gap needed to reach the 20 million threshold set by policymakers by the end of this decade.
Substantial disparities in digital employment remain across 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 during 2024. Conversely, in Greece and Romania, digital specialists accounted for just 2.5 percent and 2.8 percent of the workforce, respectively. Growth patterns also differ widely, with Estonia more than doubling its ICT workforce proportion from 3.4 percent to 7.2 percent between 2011 and 2024, while other countries saw minimal percentage increases over the same timeframe.
Educational System Limitations Fuel Reliance on International Talent
Surveys conducted among European firms reveal that 57 percent encountered serious difficulties in recruiting for IT roles in 2024. The most acute shortages are found in senior engineering jobs and specialized areas such as cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, generative AI, and cloud infrastructure. To bridge these gaps, tech companies increasingly look outside the EU workforce, leading to an increase in foreign-born ICT specialists from 9.2 percent in 2021 to 11.9 percent in 2024.
Gender disparities remain a significant barrier to expanding the EU’s digital talent pool. Eurofound’s data shows that women made up fewer than one in five ICT specialists across the 27 member states in 2024, holding a 19 percent share. Additionally, the gender pay gap in the broader ICT sector was nearly 20 percent in 2022, higher than the economy-wide average of 13 percent. Researchers from Eurofound pointed out that this underrepresentation of women results in European industries operating with less than three quarters of their potential digital workforce, limiting diversity in tech innovation.
Core Software Sector Growth Highlights Persistent Challenges
While ICT roles tend to offer above-average pay, advanced skills training, and high employment quality, these factors alone cannot address the core labor shortage. As the EU is projected to fall short of its 2030 ICT workforce target by 5 million, experts emphasize that closing this gap will require coordinated policy efforts focused on boosting domestic education capabilities and facilitating intra-EU labor mobility. The study integrated quantitative data with insights from the Network of Eurofound Correspondents and professional analytics from LinkedIn Economic Graph.
European policymakers and industry leaders face mounting pressure to adjust national vocational training frameworks to meet future digital economy needs. Eurofound warns that neglecting domestic training development will increase dependence on external talent markets, risking the broader goals of Europe’s digital transformation. As member states work to expand local training programs, enhance female participation in technical fields, and maintain economic competitiveness, regulatory bodies continue reviewing workforce recommendations to support these initiatives.