The Estonian strategic roadmap for the Digital Decade developed by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications of Estonia sets out the strategic goals to be achieved by 2030, monitoring their achievement, and the target paths and key measures have been developed. The Estonian strategic roadmap is based on the current Estonian Digital Agenda 2030 (the national strategy for Estonian digital transformation), the Education strategy 2021–2035 and the Estonian Research and Development, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Strategy 2021—2035.
In 2023, Estonia has advanced well in digital skills including ICT specialists. The country performs above the EU average (55.6%), with 62.6% of the population having at least a basic level of digital skills. The country aims to improve this further through educational measures and lifelong learning for both educators and people. ICT specialists already make up a high percentage of the workforce in Estonia (6.7% against an EU average of 4.8%). The country also has the second highest percentage of female ICT specialists in the EU (26.8%).
The Roadmap for Estonia consists of 4 chapters:
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Digital Skills
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Digital Infrastructures
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Digitalisation of Businesses
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Digitalisation of Public Services
Priorities for the development of digital skills
Estonia has launched several programmes and initiatives to address the growing demand for ICT specialists and ICT graduates in the labour market. To reduce the gender imbalance in the ICT sector, the Estonian Ministry of Social Affairs has developed projects, supported by EU funding, to promote women ‘s access to the ICT sector and to reduce the current gender imbalance.
Main directions of initiatives:
- Developing and implementing a sustainable system of forecasting and monitoring labour and skills needs which considers the needs of all target groups
- Supporting the development of competences that create more added value and improving continuing training and retraining opportunities, including work-based learning
Actions planned within the initiatives:
- Developing a system for monitoring, forecasting, and providing feedback on skills needs for wider use of results
- Creating a digital solution for managing individual learning pathways and careers, and for skills assessment
- Developing digital literacy across all age groups to increase digital inclusion and develop skills in creating information technologies
Measures contributing to the achievement of the target
- Satisfaction of private persons with public digital services
- Satisfaction of entrepreneurs with public digital services
- Availability of highspeed Internet
- Resilience and trustworthiness of cyberspace
Key challenges to overcome
An ageing population will create new challenges for the labour market and the social sector, changing the way work is done and the expectations of future employees. Demand for technology-related skills will continue to grow until 2035. In a society based on new technologies, education plays an increasing role in the cultural and ecological survival of society.
Source: European Digital Skills & Jobs Platform
