The IT skills gap - a report on the Swedish tech sector's need for excellence

Skills supply
The tech sector has long been short of workers and despite the pandemic, the need for skills remains high. The industry is now warning of an expected shortage of 70,000 people by 2024 if strong measures are not taken. This is stated in the IT&Telecom companies' new report 'IT skills shortage'.

The digital transformation, which has been further accelerated by the coronavirus crisis, is leading to a surge in demand for digital solutions such as video conferencing, cloud services and e-commerce. To meet this demand, innovative companies and skilled workers are needed to develop and maintain digital infrastructure and services.

The "IT skills shortage" is the IT&Telecom companies' fourth survey of skills shortages in the digital sector, and shows that the challenges reported in 2012, 2015 and 2017 respectively largely persist. According to the 2020 report, skills shortages are found in areas such as systems development, artificial intelligence (AI), IT security, usability design, game development and 5G technology.

Although the coronavirus crisis is also challenging for parts of the tech sector, the overall demand for digital excellence is described as increasing over time. In the report, IT&Telecom companies call for several initiatives to get more people interested in, trained for and taking the step to jobs in the tech sector.

Ten proposals for the short and long term

To meet the skills needs of the tech sector, IT&Telecom proposes ten necessary actions:  

1. establish a high-level forum on digital excellence
2. ensure that digitalization permeates the knowledge content of the entire school system
3. develop teachers' skills so that they can show both girls and boys the way into the digital future
4. ensure that more tech students - girls as well as boys - complete their education
5. Make already successful higher vocational education even better
6. really open up higher education to people of working age
7. introduce tech vouchers of SEK 10,000 - an individual-based support for digital skills development - so that all professionals have the opportunity to develop their digital skills
8. introduce skills deductions to make it easier for companies to invest in their staff
9. attract international talent to Sweden and stop skills expulsions
10. Take joint action to increase gender equality and diversity in the tech sector.

Read the report here:
Report: The IT competence shortage 2020
Report: The IT competence shortage 2020

Watch the webinar where the report was presented here:
https://techsverige.se/2020/12/webbinarium-ny-rapport-om-it-kompetensbristen

 

 

 

 

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