Companies’ need for digital skills

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This report identifies companies’ demand for digital skills. The survey was conducted for the Ministry of Industry, Business and Financial Affairs, Danish Ministry of Higher Education and Science, and the Ministry for Children, Education and Gender Equality.

Main results

The growth in companies' demand for ICT specialist competences is greater than the growth in the supply of the competences. Thus 27% of the companies that have tried to recruit ICT specialists in 2015 have not found the right skills – and almost half of them assess that they have had to drop orders for this reason. Companies experience particular recruitment challenges in relation to employees with so-called “design capabilities”, including among other things competencies within programming, systems development and applications.

The recruitment challenges with regard to ICT specialists can be expected to continue and worsen in the coming years. Projections show that by 2030 there will be an unmet demand potential of 19,000 ICT specialists. This is despite an increase in the number of people with ICT education of approx. 36,000 during the same period.

Demand for advanced ICT users has risen sharply in recent years. In 2014, just over 8% of all job postings were aimed at people using advanced ICT tools (e.g. software programs) as a central part of their work – in 2008 it was just under 6%.

The results are in line with previous studies in the field from DI Digital, IT-Branchen, Statistics Denmark and the European Commission. However, the competency mapping is more in-depth and examines in detail what specific competencies companies demand.

The mapping also contributes to the government's work with Denmark in Growth, especially Industrialisation 4.0, where the focus is on needs of the business sector for digital skills.

The study is commissioned by the Ministry of Industry, Business and Financial Affairs, Danish Ministry of Higher Education and Science, and the Ministry for Children, Education and Gender Equality.

Links

Højbjerre Brauer Schultz (2016): "Virksomheders behov for digitale kompetencer"

Højbjerre Brauer Schultz (2016): "Bilag til Virksomheders behov for digitale kompetencer"

CONTACT

ESBEN ANTON SCHULTZ

ESBEN ANTON SCHULTZ

PARTNER, PH.D. (ECONOMICS)