The digital skills gap in the Basque Country is not a hunch or a vague feeling. It is a concrete problem with a direct impact on competitiveness, the capacity to innovate, and the professional opportunities of an entire generation.
DOK’s own strategic materials clearly state this: the Basque Country needs to add 1,900 professionals per year in digital roles, while local universities and vocational training centers contribute around 800, and not all of them end up entering the sector. Furthermore, the Basque ICT sector employs approximately 24,000 professionals.
This gap between what is needed and what actually reaches the market explains why digital talent is not a secondary topic at the DOK Summit. It is one of its central themes. And it also explains why this conversation is of interest not only to companies and government agencies: it is of great interest to young people, students, and those in training who are deciding their future.
It’s not just a lack of people: there’s a lack of qualified professionals.
When we talk about the talent gap, we often imagine a problem of volume. And yes, that’s part of it. But it’s not the only one.
The challenge is not only to fill vacancies, but to have people prepared to respond to a rapidly changing market: artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, data, cloud, automation, development, systems integration, analytics, or new hybrid capabilities between business and technology.
Data from Eustat helps to understand the context. In 2025, ICT specialists represented 9.6% of employment in all establishments in the Basque Country, with a greater presence in services than in industry, and with a female presence of 33.5% among these profiles.
This reveals two things at once: that the digital base of the economic fabric is growing, and that there is still significant room to expand and diversify who occupies those positions.
Digital transformation is already here. Talent isn’t arriving at the same pace.
The problem becomes clearer when we look at the region’s starting point. The Basque Country has been making progress in business digitalization for years. In 2025, 96.1% of businesses had internet access and 57.1% had a website, according to Eustat.
That is to say: Basic digitization is widespread. But having infrastructure is one thing, and having the necessary talent to take advantage of it, develop new capabilities, and turn that digitization into real value is quite another.
This is where the underlying tension emerges. Organizations no longer compete solely on efficiency, but on their ability to generate value from technology, data, and people. DOK Summit starts precisely from this premise, arguing that one of the major obstacles to competitiveness is the structural deficit of digital talent.
Why this is also an opportunity for young people and people in training
Although the talent gap is often communicated as a company problem, it can also be interpreted in another way: as a very powerful sign of opportunity.
If the market needs more skilled professionals than it can currently produce, it means there is real room to join, specialize, and grow professionally. Not in some hypothetical sector, but in one that already has significant weight in the Basque Country and also acts as a catalyst for other sectors. DOK’s materials emphasize this idea: digital companies in the Basque Country are not only part of the technological ecosystem, but can also act as key allies for industry, energy, and the public sector to gain competitiveness.
For young people and those in training, this significantly changes the perspective. It’s not just about “studying technology.”. It’s about understanding that digital skills no longer belong to an isolated corner of the labor market: they increasingly permeate professions, sectors, and career paths..
The solutions don’t come from a single lever.
There is no single solution to close this gap. And that is probably one of the most important points.
DOK’s materials highlight several key areas: attracting, retaining, and developing specialized profiles; improving coordination between public and private stakeholders; strengthening the ecosystem; and making it more attractive to those who could build their careers here. They also point to the need to look beyond the region, attract talent from other areas, and foster a sense of belonging.
But alongside that structural vision, more concrete tools are also emerging.
In the field of AI, for example, BAIC launched ikasIA in 2026, a digital catalog with 150 courses offered by 25 training entities, designed to facilitate access to specialized training in artificial intelligence in the Basque Country.
Furthermore, BAIC places among its strategic lines the promotion of talent and capabilities in AI, along with the data strategy and the applied adoption of this technology.
It does not solve the overall gap on its own, but it does point in a useful direction: expanding itineraries, organizing the offering, making it more visible, and making it easier for more people to approach these fields from different levels.
The challenge is not just to train more people, but to connect better.
There is one idea worth emphasizing: more training will not be enough if that training is not better connected to the real market.
Many young people encounter a discourse full of big words —AI, data, cloud, cybersecurity— but with less clarity about what profiles are being sought, what skills have the most potential, how to enter the sector, or what paths can be followed from vocational training, university, or reskilling processes.
That’s why it’s so important to create spaces where this conversation becomes concrete. And that’s where DOK wants to play a clear role: connecting companies, training centers, professionals, and talent around a problem that can no longer be addressed in isolation. In fact, one of the event’s explicit objectives is to attract, retain, and develop digital talent, and its 2026 program includes a Talent Zone focused on employability, recruiting, and career guidance.
A conversation that affects the future of the territory
The digital skills gap is not just an employment problem. It’s a national problem.
It affects the competitiveness of companies, the speed of technological adoption, the ability to attract investment, the development of new projects, and the place that the Basque Country wants to occupy on the European technological map. DOK’s own communication plan establishes as one of its missions the mobilization of talent to help close precisely that gap of 1,900 profiles per year.
But it also affects something more everyday: the decisions made today by those who are studying, choosing their career path, or thinking about how to specialize.
Because when a market has a sustained need for talent, the question is no longer whether it’s worth preparing. The question becomes how to do it better and with more information.
And that’s a conversation that deserves space, data, and context.
DOK will be the forum where we will share this conversation with updated information, experiences and useful perspectives to understand the challenge and opportunities of digital talent in the Basque Country.
The digital talent gap in the Basque Country is not just an employment problem: it is a challenge for competitiveness and the future.
The annual need is estimated at 1,900 profiles, compared to some 800 local graduates, while Eustat shows that ICT specialists represent the 9.6% of employment and that imbalances still persist by sector and gender.