Sweden - National Digital Decade strategic roadmap

The Swedish strategic roadmap for the Digital Decade developed by the Government of Sweden 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. 67% of people have at least basic digital skills, which is above the EU average of 54%. Sweden also scores above the EU average for individuals with above basic digital skills (36% in Sweden vs 26% in the EU) and at least basic digital content creation skills (77% vs 66% at EU level). 

The Roadmap for Sweden consists of 4 chapters:

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

Priorities for the development of digital skills

Sweden is currently implementing several measures to further increase the level of basic digital skills. The Swedish National Agency for Education conducts targeted initiatives for school digitalisation, for those aged 6-16. This set the ground for basic digital skills for people aged 16-74. The goal of the measures is to help authorities and other actors to create and provide digital services that empower individuals in the labour market while the public and private sectors' competence needs are met. 

In addition, Sweden is working on several programmes and initiatives to increase the number of ICT specialists. The goal is to increase access to statistics and to forecast on supply of and demand for digital expertise in the Swedish labour market. 

Measures contributing to the achievement of the target

• Measure 1: Change in the higher education law

• Measure 2: Promotion efforts for accessibility, usability and diversity

• Measure 3: Work to strengthen digital competence within the school

• Measure 4: Promotion of the dissemination of information regarding digitization through the Digidelnätverket
• Measure 5: Competence-enhancing initiatives for municipalities for AI in social services
• Measure 6: Assignment to analyze AI's impact on educational provision
• Measure 7: Introduction of transition study support
• Measure 8: Wallenberg AI, Autonomous Systems and Software Program (WASP)
• Measure 9: The establishment of Cybercampus Sweden
• Measure 10: Funding availability for research in the field of cyber security and information security
• Measure 11: Education to strengthen engineering knowledge and practice

Key challenges to overcome

Sweden’s population has a high level of digital skills. Sweden scores well on the indicators for at least basic and above basic digital skills. Despite this, the Swedish industry continues to report that it is difficult to recruit ICT specialists. An increased supply of ICT specialists should improve productivity.