Brussels, Belgium / RankWire.AI / – According to a detailed analysis 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. Confirmed by official reports from Emirates News Agency, despite persistent multi-year growth in regional tech jobs, the EU is projected to miss this ICT target by 5 million workers. The Eurofound report, titled IT Sector in Focus: Evolution of the EU Digital Workforce, highlighted that the primary and vocational education systems across most European member states are not keeping pace with current and forecasted enterprise needs for specialized digital skills. As a result, companies across the bloc increasingly depend on recruiting skilled labor from outside the EU to fill urgent staffing gaps.
Even with this anticipated shortfall, overall employment within Europe’s digital sector has shown significant long-term growth over the past decade. Data from Eurofound indicates that the number of ICT specialists in the EU grew from 5.6 million in 2011 to 10.3 million in 2024, an increase of 81 percent, while their share of total employment rose from 3 percent to 5 percent. Despite this progress, annual sector growth of 7 to 8 percent remains insufficient to close the gap needed to reach the 20 million target set by policymakers for the end of the decade.
Wide regional disparities in digital employment continue across individual EU countries. Eurofound reported that ICT specialists accounted for 8.6 percent of total employment in Sweden, 8 percent in Luxembourg, and 7.8 percent in Finland in 2024. Conversely, in Greece and Romania, digital specialists represented only 2.5 percent and 2.8 percent of the workforce respectively. Growth patterns also vary considerably; Estonia more than doubled its share of ICT workers from 3.4 percent to 7.2 percent between 2011 and 2024, whereas other member states saw minimal increases during that period.
Educational Gaps Elevate Dependency on External Talent
Surveys of European companies revealed that 57 percent faced severe difficulties in recruiting for open IT roles in 2024. The most critical shortages occurred in senior engineering positions and specialized fields such as cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, generative AI, and cloud infrastructure. To bridge these gaps, tech firms have increasingly turned to international talent, with 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 major obstacle limiting the EU’s digital workforce potential. Eurofound’s findings show that women made up fewer than one in five ICT specialists across the 27 member states in 2024, accounting for just 19 percent. Furthermore, gender pay gaps in the broader ICT sector approached nearly 20 percent in 2022, well above the economy-wide average of 13 percent. Researchers pointed out that this underrepresentation constrains European industries, operating with less than three quarters of their potential digital talent pool and reducing diversity of thought in technological development.
Core Software Sector Growth Highlights Persistent Challenges
While ICT roles often offer above-average pay, advanced skills, and quality employment, these advantages alone cannot address the fundamental labor shortages. As the EU anticipates falling short of its 2030 ICT goal by 5 million workers, experts emphasize that overcoming this gap requires coordinated policy efforts focused on expanding domestic education capacity and facilitating intra-EU labor mobility. The study combined quantitative data with insights from the Network of Eurofound Correspondents and LinkedIn Economic Graph research to underpin these findings.
European policymakers and industry leaders are under increasing pressure to update national vocational training frameworks to meet future digital economy demands. Eurofound warns that neglecting domestic training improvements will lead to greater reliance on external talent pools and threaten Europe’s broader digital transformation ambitions. Regulatory agencies continue to examine workforce development strategies as member states work toward expanding local training programs, boosting female participation in technical fields, and maintaining economic competitiveness in global technology markets.