EU set to miss ICT employment targets as hiring of non-EU talent intensifies

Europe is set to fall 5 million jobs short of its Digital Decade target of having 20 million information and communications technology (ICT) specialists in employment in the EU by 2030, despite employment in the sector growing fast – with an annual growth rate of 7-8% compared with an overall employment growth rate of just over 1%.

Education and vocational education and training (VET) systems are failing to meet current and projected employment demand in most Member States. As a result, labour migration from non-EU countries has become a primary driver for recruitment in the sector.

Eurofound's new report, IT sector in focus: Evolution of the EU’s digital workforce, uses a combination of quantitative and qualitative inputs, including contributions from the Network of Eurofound Correspondents and data from the LinkedIn Economic Graph, to analyse changes in the sector over the past 15 years, as well as challenges for the digital workforce around employment and quality of work that need to be confronted if the EU is to realise its ambitious digitalisation targets.

Overall, the proportion of ICT specialists employed in the EU increased from 3% of total EU employment in 2011 to 5% in 2024. However, there are noticeable differences between Member States. In 2024, ICT specialists made up 8.6% of employment in Sweden, 8% in Luxembourg, and 7.8% in Finland, whereas in Greece it was just 2.5% and 2.8% in Romania. Rates of growth also vary significantly: between 2011 and 2024, Estonia more than doubled its share from 3.4% to 7.2%, whereas Greece only increased theirs marginally over the same period.

Between 2011 and 2024, the number of ICT specialists expanded significantly to reach 10.3 million – an 81% increase from 5.6 million. Employment in the core IT consultancy and software services sector more than doubled, surging by 128% to reach 5 million workers. Amid this growth, which is eight times higher than that of the broader economy, 57% of EU firms with open IT vacancies reported difficulties filling positions in 2024, particularly for senior and specialised roles in cybersecurity, AI, and cloud infrastructure.

In 2024, 11.9% of ICT specialists were born outside the EU, compared with 10.6% in total EU employment. The share of ICT specialists born outside the EU rose sharply from 9.2% in 2021 to 11.9% in 2024. This increase of 2.7 percentage points in just three years underscores the sector’s increasing reliance on global recruitment to sustain its growth.

Demographic data reveals critical structural vulnerabilities across the EU. Women remain notably under-represented, accounting for fewer than 1 in 5 (19%) ICT specialists in 2024, while the gender pay gap in the broader sector stood at nearly 20% in 2022, well above the 13% economy-wide average. Furthermore, female specialists report significantly lower satisfaction with pay, reduced access to paid training, and higher work intensity.

Simultaneously, regional age imbalances are shifting. While workers aged 35 and under constitute 37% of the total EU ICT workforce, Central and Eastern Member States have seen their youth shares collapse, most notably Slovakia by 18.6 percentage points and Romania by 13.4 percentage points, driven by brain drain to Western European hubs and maturing domestic markets. Conversely, Malta (52%) and Lithuania (51.3%) maintain the youngest workforces, whereas Italy (28.7%) and Finland (31.7%) face severe long-term replacement risks.

The research highlights that addressing these shortages requires targeted policy intervention focused on domestic talent supply and mobility rather than job quality adjustments, as IT roles already feature above-average pay and working conditions. Closing the gender employment gap is an urgent economic necessity, as failing to attract women means operating with less than three-quarters of the potential talent pool.

To bridge the remaining shortfall, Member States must better utilise existing European frameworks, such as EURES and Erasmus+, to address geographic mismatches while continuing to streamline strategic legal migration pathways for highly skilled non-EU talent.

• Read the full report: IT sector in focus: Evolution of the EU’s digital workforce

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