Portugal - Digital Skills Pact 2030

The Digital Skills Pact (Pacto de Competências Digitais) was adopted by the Government of Portugal in 2025, with core actions scheduled for implementation over the 2026–2030 period. Approved by Council of Ministers Resolution No. 216/2025, the Digital Skills Pact formally succeeds the former INCoDe.2030 programme.

The main objective of the Digital Skills Pact is to foster social mobility, civic participation, economic productivity, and state modernization by bridging existing skill gaps and bringing Portugal to the forefront of the European digital transition. The initiative is fully aligned with the targets of the European Union’s Digital Decade 2030 framework.

The Four Guiding Principles

• Equal Access: Ensuring digital up-skilling is accessible to all citizens regardless of geography, age, or socioeconomic status, serving as a driver for social inclusion and territorial cohesion.
• Lifelong Learning: Promoting continuous skill updates to keep pace with rapid technological evolution and ongoing economic transformation.
• Digital Ecosystem Alignment: Coordinating public, private, and academic stakeholders to ensure training programs match actual labor market needs.
• Sustainability and Innovation: Monitoring goals continuously to guarantee that investments generate tangible economic growth and build a digitally prepared society.

Key Strategic Targets by 2030

The Pact sets concrete quantitative goals to elevate Portugal’s human capital across all proficiency levels:

• Basic Digital Skills: Raise basic digital literacy from 56% (2024) to 80% of the population, training over 1.9 million people.

• Intermediate and Advanced Skills: Increase intermediate/advanced digital literacy among the active workforce from 30% (2024) to 40%, training over 800,000 individuals.

• Emerging Tech Specialists: Expand ICT/advanced technology specialists from 5.2% (2024) to 7% of total employment, adding over 100,000 specialists.

• Women in ICT: Increase the share of female ICT specialists from 23% (2024) to 30%.

• Connectivity: Achieve 100% 5G coverage across the country (up from 99% in 2024).

The Four Strategic Pillars and Operational Initiatives

Operationalized through 17 key initiatives, the Digital Skills Pact is structured across four primary axes:

Basic Digital Skills

Focuses on social inclusion and ensuring no region or vulnerable group is left behind.

• Community Digital Agents: Establishing a network of technicians and volunteers to conduct certified basic training, specifically targeting adults aged 45–70, rural populations, and people with low educational attainment.

• Mobile Units: Deploying equipped mobile classrooms to bring digital training directly to remote regions.

• Multimodal Campaigns and Device Access: Launching nationwide media campaigns and evaluating mobile device access for socioeconomically vulnerable populations.

Intermediate to Advanced Digital Skills

Drives workforce productivity and up-skilling in close collaboration with the private sector

• Priority Skills Mapping: Conducting sector surveys with industry associations to map high-employability digital skill needs.

• Workforce Upskilling and Reskilling: Delivering certified intermediate and advanced training for active workers and job seekers.

• Public Sector Upskilling: Accelerating digital and AI literacy programs for civil servants to modernize public services.

• SME Digital Leadership: Offering tailored training for SME workers focusing on digital leadership, AI, data analytics, and cybersecurity.

Emerging Technological Skills

Prepares the national workforce for next-generation technological domains.

• School Awareness and STEM: Reviewing school curricula to introduce AI concepts and implementing the National "Girls in STEM" Program.

• Advanced Technology Training: Specialized courses for the active workforce in AI, generative AI, data science, cybersecurity, cloud computing, and digital twins.

• Non-Academic Doctorates: Expanding industrial and non-academic PhD programs in emerging technology fields.

Cross-Cutting Framework

Provides the structural and operational tools to support the lifelong learning ecosystem.

• Maturity Diagnostics and Aggregator Portal: Developing digital diagnostic tools for personalized training plans and centralizing public/private training offers into a single portal.

• Micro-credentials Framework: Creating a national system to recognize, validate, and certify modular digital skills in line with EU standards.

• Digital Training Wallet: Developing an interoperable digital wallet within the gov.pt app to store lifelong qualifications and micro-credentials.