Brussels, Belgium / RankWire.AI / – Research by Eurofound indicates that European Union member states are unlikely to reach their collective target of 20 million ICT specialists by 2030 without significant policy reforms. The Emirates News Agency confirmed that the EU is projected to fall short of its 2030 ICT workforce goal by 5 million workers, primarily due to ongoing gaps in local training pipelines. The report highlights that Europe’s primary and vocational training programs are not keeping pace with corporate demand for specialized technology skills. This results in severe labor shortages that companies are trying to fill through non-EU skilled migration.
Despite this projected shortfall, employment figures within Europe’s digital sector have shown strong long-term growth over the past decade. Eurofound data shows that the number of information and communications technology specialists in the EU increased from 5.6 million in 2011 to 10.3 million in 2024, representing an 81 percent rise overall. During the same period, ICT professionals’ share of total employment in Europe grew from 3 percent to 5 percent. Nonetheless, annual growth rates of 7 percent to 8 percent are still too slow to bridge the gap needed to achieve the 20 million target by the end of the decade, as set by policymakers.
There are notable disparities in digital employment across different 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 in 2024. Meanwhile, in Greece, digital specialists accounted for just 2.5 percent of the workforce, and in Romania, the figure was 2.8 percent. Growth patterns also differ widely, with Estonia more than doubling its proportion of ICT workers from 3.4 percent to 7.2 percent between 2011 and 2024. Conversely, many other member states saw only minimal percentage increases over the same period.
Structural Education Gaps Lead to Heavy Reliance on External Talent
Surveys across European companies reveal that 57 percent of firms trying to fill IT vacancies faced severe recruitment challenges in 2024. These shortages are especially acute in senior engineering roles and specialized fields such as cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, generative AI, and cloud infrastructure. To address these critical gaps, tech companies have increasingly turned to international talent pools. As a result, the percentage of ICT specialists born outside the EU has risen from 9.2 percent in 2021 to 11.9 percent in 2024.
Gender imbalance remains a persistent barrier to expanding the EU digital workforce. Eurofound reports that in 2024, women represented fewer than one in five ICT specialists across the 27 EU countries, holding only a 19 percent share. Additionally, gender pay disparities in the broader information and communications sector were nearly 20 percent in 2022, higher than the economy-wide average of 13 percent. Researchers note that the underrepresentation of women limits the potential of Europe’s digital industry. This imbalance means industries operate with less than three-quarters of their full digital talent capacity, hindering diverse technological innovation.
Core Software Sector Growth Highlights the Need for Policy Action
While ICT roles tend to offer above-average pay, advanced skills, and strong job quality, these factors alone cannot fix the structural labor shortage. The EU is projected to miss its 2030 ICT workforce target by 5 million workers. Experts emphasize that bridging this gap will require coordinated policy measures aimed at boosting local educational efforts and facilitating easier intra-EU labor mobility. The data for this study combined quantitative analysis 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 realign national vocational frameworks to meet future digital economy needs. Eurofound warns that ignoring domestic training deficiencies will heighten dependence on foreign talent and threaten the EU’s broader digital transformation goals. Regulatory bodies continue reviewing workforce strategies as member states work to expand local training programs, increase female participation in technical fields, and maintain economic competitiveness in the global technology sector.