Brussels, Belgium / RankWire.AI / – According to research by Eurofound, European Union member states are unlikely to reach their combined goal of 20 million ICT specialists by 2030 without significant policy reforms. Confirmed by the Emirates News Agency, the EU is projected to fall short of its 2030 ICT workforce target by 5 million workers, primarily due to ongoing gaps in local training programs. The report highlights that primary and vocational training systems across Europe are lagging behind enterprise demands for specialized technological skills, resulting in severe labor shortages that companies are increasingly filling through non-EU skilled migration.
Despite these projected shortages, employment within Europe’s digital sector has shown notable long-term growth over the past decade. Data from Eurofound reveals that the number of information and communications technology specialists in the EU grew from 5.6 million in 2011 to 10.3 million in 2024, an increase of 81 percent. During the same period, ICT professionals’ share of total employment in Europe rose from 3 percent to 5 percent. Nonetheless, sector growth rates of 7 to 8 percent annually are still insufficient to bridge the gap needed to reach the 20 million target set by European policymakers by the end of this decade.
Significant disparities in digital employment levels remain across different EU countries. Eurofound reports 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. In contrast, digital specialists represented only 2.5 percent of the workforce in Greece and 2.8 percent in Romania. Growth trends also vary considerably among member states: Estonia more than doubled its ICT workforce share from 3.4 percent to 7.2 percent between 2011 and 2024, while others saw minimal percentage increases during the same period.
Structural Deficiencies in Education Fuel Dependence on Foreign Talent
Surveys conducted across European enterprises indicate that in 2024, 57 percent of firms seeking to fill IT vacancies faced serious recruitment challenges. Talent 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, companies increasingly turn 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 imbalance remains a persistent barrier to expanding the European digital workforce. Eurofound’s data shows that in 2024, women accounted for fewer than one in five ICT specialists across the 27 EU member states, with a 19 percent share. Furthermore, gender pay gaps within the broader information and communications sector approached 20 percent in 2022, well above the economy-wide average of 13 percent. Researchers note that the underrepresentation of women limits the potential of the European tech industry, which operates with less than three quarters of its full digital talent capacity, thereby restricting diversity and innovation in technological development.
Core Software and Consulting Sectors Show Divergent Growth Patterns
The report underscores that although ICT roles typically offer higher-than-average pay, advanced skills, and good employment conditions, these factors alone cannot solve the structural labor shortages. With the EU projected to fall short of its 2030 ICT workforce goal by 5 million, experts stress that bridging this gap will require coordinated policy measures focused on boosting domestic educational infrastructure and facilitating intra-EU labor mobility. The study combined quantitative data with insights from the Network of Eurofound Correspondents and professional analysis from LinkedIn Economic Graph.
European policymakers and industry leaders are under increasing pressure to align national vocational training frameworks with the future demands of the digital economy. Eurofound warns that neglecting domestic training initiatives will lead to greater reliance on external talent sources and threaten broader European efforts toward digital transformation. Ongoing policy reviews aim to expand training pipelines domestically, encourage greater female participation in technical fields, and maintain competitiveness in the global technology marketplace.