Digital skill gap, the knot holding back the competitiveness of the country system

The demand for digital skills continues to move twice as fast as the ability to train new professionals. An assumption that the numbers of the Observatory promoted by AICA, Anitec-Assinform and Assintel in collaboration with Talents Venture mercilessly confirm, highlighting a now chronic misalignment. Compared to approximately 136 thousand advertisements for ICT profiles published in a year on LinkedIn alone, the Italian education system injects 73 thousand certified figures from universities, higher technical institutes and master's degrees into the labour market. This is a very significant imbalance that fuels the country's lagging behind the European average and reflects a real structural limitation in the ability to attract, retain and develop skills critical to the competitiveness of our economic and industrial fabric. A few more numbers to give a good idea of the problem: if those employed in the Information and Communication Technology sector in Italy represent just 4% of the total, compared to 5% in the European Union, bridging this gap would mean immediately increasing the pool of talent by over 236,000.

The snapshot of the Digital Skills Observatory 2025 thus shows a mature and diversified demand, with roles related to software development leading the list of the most in-demand between January 2024 and September this year (14,000 advertisements out of more than 222,000 total), followed by those related to IT project management and specialised profiles in software engineering. The demand for skills related to generative artificial intelligence is also growing exponentially. The prompt engineering, in particular, is experiencing a 112% surge in demand, rising to the status of an increasingly sought-after figure for business process reengineering. At the same time, the (necessary) focus on cybersecurity increases by 70 per cent in advertisements for the figure of the Cybersecurity Engineer. Italy, however, continues to show fragility even in basic skills, which is well testified by the fact that, according to the AICA data cited in the report, only 30% of national users reach sufficiency in the general use of computers and just 17% in the Office suite.

The mismatch of skills, the note accompanying the study goes on to say, is not only explained by the scarcity of talent coming out of training courses, but extends to a problem of attractiveness and transparency in recruitment methods. The analysis conducted on 10,000 ICT job advertisements published during the course of this year shows, in this respect, a picture that is not very competitive compared to the standards of the main European markets, with as many as 74% of job descriptions lacking an indication of the gross annual salary and only 11% indicating a salary range. Moreover, more than half of the advertisements (55% to be precise) do not mention any benefits and just 36% refer to flexible working hours. In a scenario where digital skills are scarce, not declaring guaranteed salary levels, potential career paths or elements ofwork-life balance strongly reduce the ability of Italian companies to attract the most qualified profiles, especially in the pool of young graduates in scientific and IT disciplines, who are, by force of circumstance, attracted by often more competitive offers from abroad.

On the educational offer front, the report records a significant but still insufficient expansion. More specifically, over the last ten years the number of technology-oriented degree courses has grown from 670 to 850, with the Polytechnics of Milan and Turin playing a leading role, capable of bringing more than 5,000 new professionals onto the market each year. Also interesting is the figure for the increase in graduates from telematics universities, which now account for around 9% of the total number of ICT graduates. On the other hand, action to expand the number of new courses dedicated to digital technology remains marginal, at least for the time being: of the 161 university courses approved by ANVUR (National Agency for the Evaluation of the University System and Research) for 2025/26, only 12% concern Information Technology-related subjects.

Somewhat better is the case with the ITS Academy, which recorded a 40% increase in the number of available pathways (with enrolments up by 37% and applications up by 58%), which is nonetheless insufficient to guarantee an adequate output of specialised figures to meet market demand. Finally, the problem of limited female participation remains unresolved: women represent 23% of those enrolled in ICT courses, a share that is not growing and further limits the potential pool of skills.