Digital Skills & Knowledge Concepts Labelling Initiative – European Classification of Occupations, Skills & Competences (ESCO) 

In fall of 2022, the European Commission moved forward in its effort to close the digital skills gap and support initiatives and plans to raise the standard of digital literacy in Europe through the Digital Skills and Knowledge Concepts Labelling Initiative. The European Classification of Occupations, Skills, and Competences (ESCO) “digital label” distinguishes the digital skills and knowledge competences that are part of the ESCO classification. The labelling of concepts related to digital skills and knowledge combines machine learning (ML) algorithms with human labelling and validation.

The impetus for this work is the lack of necessary digital skills by many Europeans, in the face of growing importance of these skills for studying, working, accessing public internet services, and locating reliable information. According to the Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI), every third worker and four out of ten adults in Europe lack fundamental digital skills. To ensure that 70% of adults possess fundamental digital skills by 2025, the European Commission set goals in the European Skills Agenda and the Digital Education Action Plan.

The new digital labels for ESCO skills and knowledge concepts contributes to an analysis of the labor market with new insights. In this work, 1,201 ESCO skills and knowledge concepts have been classified as digital:

• 718 skills
• 475 knowledge concepts
• 7 transversal skills.

Many stakeholders are expected to benefit from this labelling work: public employment services, education providers, policymakers, and researchers.

The digital concepts are available on the ESCO portal, in the Download section (choose the latest version of the classification and the digital skills collection will be included in the dataset downloaded).

Links to Resources: Information about the methodology used to label digital skills and access its results and use cases, is available at:

• ESCO Data Science team blog post on Digital Skills and Knowledge Concepts
• Technical Report: Digital Skills and Knowledge Concepts: Labelling the ESCO classification
• For questions: EMPL-ESCO-SECRETARIAT@ec.europa.eu.