The Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition is a community supported by the European Commission to address the digital skills gap in Europe. It includes 25 National Coalitions and over 500 member organizations working on initiatives to boost digital skills. There is a high demand for ICT specialists but also a shortage, and programs aim to reskill and upskill Europeans. Investments are needed in both digital technologies and skills to take advantage of new technologies like artificial intelligence and ensure data skills and literacy. Bridges between industry and universities are important to develop specialized curricula focused on growing skills in high-demand areas such as software engineering and cybersecurity. The Coalition highlights various member pledges and initiatives that have provided digital skills training and certifications to over

1. Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition
Future of digital skills in Europe: reskilling and upskilling
through partnerships
Christine Simon
European Commission, DG Connect
Big Data Skills Accreditation Workshop
17th September 2020

2. ▪ The Digital Skills and Jobs
Coalition - a unique community
supported by the European
Commission since 2016;
▪ Working to reduce the digital
skills gap in Europe;
▪ A platform of exchange and
learning to showcase actions and
initiatives as well as their impact.
The Coalition

3. ▪ The DSJC enables organisations
concerned by the digital skills gap to
be proactive and propose actions,
programmes, initiatives to
contribute to the digital
transformation of Europeans
▪ 25 National Coalitions
▪ A community of 513
organisations
▪ The activities of the DSJC focus
around 4 key target groups
The Coalition activities

4. DESI 2020 - ICT specialists
• Employed ICT specialists in the EU: 3.9% of total employment (ICT specialists is a broad definition including
jobs like ICT service managers, ICT professionals, ICT technicians, ICT installers and servicers)
• Shortage of ICT specialists on the labour market: 64% of large enterprises and 56% of SMEs that recruited
ICT specialists during 2018, reported that vacancies for ICT specialists are hard to fill

5. European Strategy for Data
▪ Big data and analytics are top of the list of critical skills
shortages. In 2017, approximately 496 000 unfilled positions in
the area of big data;
▪ General data literacy in the workforce and across the
population is relatively low;
▪ if not addressed, the shortage in data experts and the lack of
data literacy will affect the EU’s capacity to master the
challenges of the data economy and society.
• Aims at creating a single market for data;
• Common European data spaces will ensure that more data becomes available for use in the
economy and society

6. Digital Europe Programme
Advanced digital skills
High
performance
computing
Cybersecurity &
trust
Artificial
intelligence
Digital
transformation and
interoperability
EC proposal: budget EUR 9.2
billion (2021-2027)
Gains from common EU investments in
digital technologies will only materialise if
there is a sufficient number of skilled
people to develop, roll-out and use these
new technologies.
Investment to boost the number of digital
specialists in the EU is necessary and must
go hand-in-hand with investments in
technologies.
WHY advanced digital skills?

7. AI & data in European companies
42% of European
companies use at least
one AI technology
Large enterprises are
twice as likely to take
advantage of AI
Only 20% develop it in-
house, largely outsourced
Skills gap is a problem for
AI - 57% cite difficulties
hiring skilled staff and
45% a lack of skills
33% find data
standardisation to be a
significant barrier
Source: European enterprise survey on the use of
technologies based on artificial intelligence (2020) EC

8. ▪ Research groups and
SMEs/startups equally struggle to
attract talent
▪ University curricula are not
responding to the market
▪ Need to improve attractiveness
of the different fields and
promote true collaboration with
industry for skills development
Bridging the digital talent gap
▪ Require specialised curricula
focusing on interdisciplinarity and
sector or vertical knowledge
▪ Training in AI skills needs to be
accessible to those from other
disciplines
▪ Rome, October 2019
Software Engineering, Artificial Intelligence and Cybersecurity
Source: Bridging the Digital Talent Gap - Towards Successful
Industry-University Partnerships (2020) Informatics Europe

9. ▪ Digital skills hardest to fill:
1. Software Engineering
2. Cloud computing
3. Data Science
4. Cybersecurity
5. UI/UX
Blueprints for upskilling SMEs
Based on the analysis 74,000 LinkedIn posts
comparing vacancies and time to fill them over a
period of three months in 2018
▪ The ICT sector shows the highest
digital skills gap, followed by
Consulting, Finance and Telecom
▪ Big data courses are more than 2
times more expensive than those
for other skills such as AI, IoT
Source: Digital Skills: New Professions, New
Educational Methods, New Jobs, (2018) EC

10. ▪ 149 pledges, 353 initiatives and
12 million beneficiaries on the
Pledge Viewer
▪ Of these, 25 pledges are focused
on certification, and 18 are
aimed at SMEs
▪ 90,000 digital skills certificates
offered
▪ 7 focusing on big data, from
organisations such as BDVA,
Cisco, DigitalES, Ubiqum, Dell,
ORT France and Wings ICT
Solutions
Pledges – a way forward

11. @DigitalSkillsEU
#DSJCoalition