Spain - National Digital Decade strategic roadmap

The Spanish strategic roadmap for the Digital Decade developed by the Government of Spain 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. 

Spain is performing well in view of the Digital Decade targets on digital skills, with 64% of the population possessing at least basic digital skills, above the EU average of 54%. Spanish users use regular internet (93%) and have at least basic digital content creation skills (74%). The percentage of enterprises providing ICT training (21%) is slightly below the EU average (22%) and the percentage of ICT specialists (4.3%) is growing slowly in alignment with the path registered in the EU but is still below the EU average (4.6%). The lack of ICT specialists is partly being addressed as the percentage of ICT graduates has now increased significantly above the EU average (4.8% versus 4.2%).

The Roadmap for Spain consists of 4 chapters:

• Digital Competencies
• Digital Infrastructure
• Digital Transformation of Businesses
• Digitalisation of Public Services 

Priorities for the development of digital skills

Spain is currently implementing several measures that can further increase the level of basic digital skills. In November 2022, as part of the National Digital Competences Plan with a budget of EUR 3.7 billion, Spain presented the Generation D Pact, an ambitious public-private initiative that is aimed to: 

• provide a public space for public-private cooperation to boost digital skills;
• raise awareness on how to overcome the digital divide;
• make digital skills training and activities easily accessible;
• promote digital skills certifications;
• foster cooperation between all levels of administration.

Measures contributing to the achievement of the target

• Basic digital skills for citizens at risk of digital exclusion (Third Sector) – Digital skills training programmes for over 214,000 citizens at risk of digital exclusion.

• CODI program - Digital skills training for over 900,000 vulnerable children and adolescents.

• State Network of Digital Training Centres – Inclusive initiative to promote digital literacy and secure online practices among citizens, facilitated by locally established digital training units.

• Generation D Campaign - Campaign in partnership with RTVE to promote digital literacy through media outreach and a nationwide bus tour targeting communities with limited digital access.

• Generation D Portal – Open participatory platform that provides opportunities and resources for the development and enhancement of digital skills for all its users.

• Challenge Based Learning - Online learning service that includes the creation and maintenance of a learning management system.

• Plan #DigEdu - Plan #DigEdu enhances education by improving teachers' digital skills and integrating digital skills into curricula starting in early education.

• Uni-Digital Plan - The Uni-Digital Plan promotes digitization in higher education by equipping students with advanced skills, fostering digital vocations, and stimulating university-wide digital innovation.

• FP-Digital Plan - The FP-Digital Plan aims to modernize vocational training by enhancing digitization, teacher training, resource availability, data management, transforming training spaces into tech spaces, and supporting digital entrepreneurship.

• DIGITALIZATE PLUS - Digitalízate Plus offers free, personalized, and advanced digital skills training for workers and SMEs, with course options from digital basics to artificial intelligence, facilitated by tech experts.

• Chair on AI - The Chair on AI program advances AI research and education, fostering collaboration between universities and companies to drive Spain's tech transition and cultivate skilled professionals. Up to 20 university-business chairs will be funded.

• SpAIn Talent Hub– Information hub to attract and retain talent in the artificial intelligence field. The creation of this hub will serve as a nexus for researchers and companies, both Spanish and foreign, providing information on grants, job opportunities, investment potential in Spain, and collaboration possibilities.

• Haz Project - Advanced digital skills training hub for the audiovisual sector, offering training for both professionals and unemployed individuals in the sector. It aims to enable 40,000 individuals
  to work as professionals in the audiovisual sector.
• Hacker Talent - Program fostering cybersecurity skills and employability through practical, competency-based training to meet the increasing sector demand for professionals. It aims to train more than 11,000 students in technical cybersecurity courses of, at least, 250h.