Lithuania - National Digital Decade strategic roadmap

The Lithuanian strategic roadmap for the Digital Decade developed by the Ministry of the Economy and Innovation of Lithuania sets out the strategic goals to be achieved by 2030, monitoring their achievement, and the target paths and key measures have been developed.  

The report uses the data in the Digital Decade Report 2023 on the National Base Value of the Digital Decade Targets, the EU baseline value for Digital Decade Targets in 2023 and the EU target value for 2030. 

On digital skills, Lithuania’s performance has room for improvement, although it has made an important progress in some indicators over the recent years, in particular in the area of ICT specialists. Still, Lithuania will need to continue the sustained efforts in view of the Digital Decade digital skills’ 2030 targets.Almost half of the Lithuanian population masters at least basic digital skills, slightly below the EU average (49% vs 54%). The data on above basic digital skills show a similar difference, where Lithuania scores 23% against the EU average of 26%. The share of ICT specialists in total employment is 4.4%, below the EU average of 4.6% but significantly higher than last year (3.8%) and thereby converging quickly with the EU average. ICT graduates currently account for 4.7% of all graduates in Lithuania. Notably, the country remains significantly above the EU average in terms of gender balance among in the ICT workforce. Lithuanian enterprises are modestly investing in ICT training: only 13% provided specialised ICT training to their employees, against the EU average of 22%. 

The Roadmap for Lithuania consists of 4 chapters:

• Digital skills and ICT professionals
• Secure, resilient, performant and sustainable digital infrastructure 
• Digital transformation of businesses 
• Digitalisation of public services 

Priorities for the development of digital skills

Lithuania is paying particular attention to the education system, with a major overhaul of primary and secondary school curricula to strengthen digital competences. Activities are also currently being implemented to promote digital entrepreneurship among students. It also implements activities for adult learning and establishes a model and principles for the operation of a unified and coordinated Lifelong Learning System.

Various initiatives are constantly being implemented in Lithuania to improve digital skills. Every year, public institutions and businesses in Lithuania organise events to educate the population and promote safe use of digital technologies.

One of the priorities under the 2021-2030 National Digitalisation Development Programme is to improve the digital skills of people in socially vulnerable groups, such as people with disabilities, elderly, and people on lower incomes. As in previous years, Lithuania promoted digital skills at all levels of education and vocational training. 

Measures contributing to the achievement of the target

• Measure 1: To improve digital skills of socially vulnerable groups, focusing on various means to help people with special needs to use the internet.
• Measure 2: To deliver the digital transformation of education EdTech, focusing investments on the introduction of new teaching methods in the system of education and competences of teachers.
• Measure 3: To introduce a one-stop-shop for career planning and skills development, with actions planned to train 21,600 people, at least 40% of whom are expected to acquire digital skills by 2026.
• Measure 4: To strengthen cyber resilience, which includes actions related to strengthening knowledge and skills in the field of cyber security.
• Measure 5: To develop technological solutions and tools for the safe and convenient use of services, which includes the implementation of planned actions aimed at improving digital skills of individuals.
• Measure 6: To foster entrepreneurship and create incentives for business growth, in which one of the actions is focused on increasing the digital skills of pupils in grades 5 to 8, thus encouraging their digital entrepreneurship.

Key challenges to overcome

Although various activities are being carried out in Lithuania to improve the digital skills of the population and increase the competences of the ICT professionals, it is a major challenge for Lithuania to meet the EU digital target (80% of the population with at least basic digital skills and at least 10% of those working in the ICT area).

The demand for ICT professionals is already much higher than the supply, so long-term and systematic measures are needed. By 2030, the demand for ICT professionals in Lithuania is projected to grow 5 times faster than in other professions.

The growth of the number of the ICT students does not reflect the numbers of graduates entering the market – half of them drop out and only half of those who graduate are employed in ICT. The total number of graduates is insufficient to meet market needs.