Trends and forecasts

The demand for  ICT skills keeps growing at a tremendous pace, propagating across all sectors of the economy where digital functions and roles form a key aspect of organisational management and new business development.

In Italy

Data from the Digital Competences Observatory 2017 (Aica, Assinform, Assintel and Assinter Italia, promoted by Miur and Agid) show these rates of growth of the demand in the last three year:

• +26% the demand for “ICT professions” (Developers, System Analyst, ICT Consultant)
• +90% the demand for the “New digital professions” (Business analysts and Big Data specialists)  
• +56% the “Emerging Professions” (Cloud computing, Cybersecurity, IoT, Service development, Service strategy, Robotics, Cognitive Expert & Artificial intelligence Expert)

In Europe

Data from the Europe’s Digital Progress Report SWD 2017 (European Commission) indicate that “despite the positive evolution in recent years, the gap between demand and supply of ICT specialists in the EU is expected to grow from 373,000 in 2015 to about 500,000 by 2020. In other words, the employment potential of specialised ICT skills remains underexploited”.

Globally

The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Survey 2016 warns that  “current trends could lead to  “a net employment impact of more than 5.1 million jobs lost to disruptive labour market changes over the period 2015–2020, with a total loss of 7.1 million jobs—two thirds of which are concentrated in routine white collar office functions, such as Office and Administrative roles—and a total gain of 2 million jobs, in Computer and Mathematical and Architecture and Engineering related fields.”

The Fourth Industrial Revolution will cause widespread disruption not only to business models but also to labour markets, with an enormous change predicted in the skill sets needed to thrive in the new landscape.

The next 5 years are particularly critical, both in terms of the predicted impact on jobs and because they pose a unique window for adaptation.”