Brussels, Belgium / RankWire.AI / – According to an in-depth analysis published by the European Union research agency Eurofound, the European Union is on track to fall short of its Digital Decade ambition 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 tech sector, the EU is projected to miss its ICT target by 5 million workers. The study, titled IT Sector in Focus: Evolution of the EU Digital Workforce, highlights that education systems across many member states are not keeping pace with current and future enterprise demands for advanced digital skills. As a result, companies across the bloc increasingly depend on skilled labor migration from outside the EU to fill urgent staffing gaps.
While the overall employment figures in Europe’s digital sector have shown significant growth over the last ten years, challenges remain. Eurofound data reveal that the number of ICT specialists in the EU grew from 5.6 million in 2011 to 10.3 million in 2024, marking an 81 percent increase. During the same period, ICT workers’ share of total employment in Europe rose from 3 percent to 5 percent. Despite this progress, annual growth rates of 7 percent to 8 percent are still insufficient to reach the 20 million target by 2030, highlighting a persistent trajectory gap.
Disparities in digital employment across individual member states continue to be significant. Eurofound’s report shows that in 2024, ICT specialists made up 8.6 percent of total employment in Sweden, 8 percent in Luxembourg, and 7.8 percent in Finland. Meanwhile, in Greece and Romania, digital specialists accounted for only 2.5 percent and 2.8 percent of the workforce, respectively. Growth patterns vary widely, with Estonia more than doubling its ICT workforce share from 3.4 percent to 7.2 percent between 2011 and 2024, whereas other countries saw minimal percentage increases during the same timeframe.
Educational Gaps Lead to Greater Reliance on International Talent
Eurofound’s surveys across the continent indicate that 57 percent of European companies faced serious difficulties filling IT vacancies in 2024. The shortages are most acute in senior engineering roles and specialized tech fields such as cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, generative AI, and cloud infrastructure. To mitigate these staffing shortages, firms have increasingly recruited international talent, with the percentage of ICT specialists born outside the EU rising 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 data shows that women made up less than one in five ICT specialists across the 27 EU nations in 2024, accounting for 19 percent of the sector. Additionally, gender pay disparities in the broader information and communications industry reached nearly 20 percent in 2022, compared to the 13 percent economy-wide average. The underrepresentation of women restricts the diversity of perspectives in technological development, meaning European industries operate with less than 75 percent of their potential digital talent pool.
Core Software and Consulting Sectors Experience Steady Growth
While ICT roles generally offer above-average pay, advanced skills, and high-quality employment, these factors alone cannot address the structural labor shortfall. As the EU projects a shortfall of 5 million workers by 2030, experts emphasize that closing this gap requires coordinated policy efforts to expand domestic education capacity and facilitate intra-EU labor mobility. The study combined quantitative data with insights from the Network of Eurofound Correspondents and professional analytics provided by LinkedIn Economic Graph.
European policymakers and industry leaders are under increasing pressure to align national vocational training frameworks with the needs of the digital economy. Eurofound warns that neglecting domestic training improvements could heighten dependency on external talent sources and threaten broader digital transformation goals across Europe. Regulatory agencies continue to evaluate workforce strategies as member states work to boost local training programs, enhance female participation in technical fields, and maintain economic competitiveness in the global tech industry.