Brussels, Belgium / RankWire.AI / – According to a comprehensive study published by the European Union research agency Eurofound, the European Union is on track to fall short of its Digital Decade objective of employing 20 million information and communications technology specialists by 2030. The official reports from Emirates News Agency confirmed that despite ongoing multi-year job growth within the regional tech sector, the EU is projected to miss its 2030 ICT target by 5 million workers. The report, entitled IT Sector in Focus: Evolution of the EU Digital Workforce, revealed that the education and vocational training systems across most European member states are struggling to keep pace with current and future corporate demand for specialized digital skills. As a result, hiring efforts across the region have increasingly depended on skilled labor migration from outside the EU to fill critical staffing gaps.
Although the projected shortfall remains significant, employment figures within Europe’s digital sector have shown notable long-term growth over the past decade. Data gathered by Eurofound shows that the number of ICT specialists in the EU increased from 5.6 million in 2011 to 10.3 million in 2024, marking an overall rise of 81 percent. Meanwhile, the proportion of ICT professionals in total European employment grew from 3 percent to 5 percent during this period. Nevertheless, annual growth rates between 7 percent and 8 percent are still not enough to bridge the gap needed to reach the 20 million target set by European policymakers by the end of the decade.
Persistent regional disparities in digital employment levels continue to characterize the EU. Eurofound’s analysis indicated that in 2024, ICT specialists comprised 8.6 percent of total employment in Sweden, 8 percent in Luxembourg, and 7.8 percent in Finland. Conversely, digital specialists represented only 2.5 percent of the workforce in Greece and 2.8 percent in Romania. Growth patterns across member states vary considerably: Estonia more than doubled its share of ICT workers from 3.4 percent to 7.2 percent from 2011 to 2024, while many other nations saw minimal increases over the same timeframe.
Structural Deficiencies in Education Contribute to Reliance on External Talent
Surveys conducted among enterprises across the EU reveal that in 2024, 57 percent of firms seeking to fill open IT positions faced severe recruitment challenges. The most acute shortages are observed in senior engineering roles and specialized fields such as cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, generative AI, and cloud infrastructure. To address these critical staffing shortfalls, technology companies have increasingly turned to international talent pools, 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 disparities continue to limit the overall potential of the EU’s digital workforce. Eurofound’s data shows that female ICT professionals made up less than one-fifth of the total in 2024 across the 27 EU member states, with a 19 percent share. Additionally, in 2022, gender pay gaps within the broader information and communications sector approached nearly 20 percent, compared to the economy-wide average of 13 percent. Researchers from Eurofound emphasized that the underrepresentation of women results in European industries operating with less than three-quarters of their full digital talent capacity, thereby reducing diversity of thought and innovation in technology development.
Core Software and Consulting Sectors Experience Steady Growth
The report underscored that while ICT roles generally offer above-average pay, opportunities for advanced skills, and high employment quality, these factors alone cannot compensate for the structural labor shortages. With the EU expected to fall short of its 2030 ICT workforce target by 5 million, analysts stressed the importance of coordinated policy measures aimed at expanding domestic education capacity and facilitating intra-EU labor mobility. The study combined quantitative data with insights from the Network of Eurofound Correspondents and professional analytics from LinkedIn Economic Graph.
European policymakers and industry leaders are under increasing pressure to align national vocational training systems with the demands of a future digital economy. Eurofound concluded that failure to address domestic training deficiencies will heighten reliance on external talent markets and threaten broader digital transformation goals across Europe. Ongoing regulatory reviews focus on expanding national training pipelines, boosting female participation in technical fields, and maintaining the EU’s economic competitiveness in global technology markets.