Across Europe, the shortage of skilled workers is becoming a key challenge. The Council of the European Union explains that this is due to demographic changes, the demand for new skills and poor working conditions in some sectors.
Furthermore, a recent report highlighted that around 42% of Europeans lack basic digital skills, including 37% of the workforce.
The rapid progress of AI is increasing the pressure. While AI offers the EU an opportunity to strengthen the bloc's innovation and competitiveness, there is still a gap between the skills required and those available.
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In the Netherlands, new analysis from De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB) has found that labor force growth will decline sharply in the coming decades. It states that there are more job vacancies than unemployed people in the Dutch workforce and that this trend will continue.
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Germany is also experiencing a similar fate: Indeed's Jobs & Hiring Trends Report for 2025 finds that demand for workers continues to cool, especially among occupational groups with top salaries. The report also stated that Germany is heading towards a shortage of skilled workers in the medium term.
According to Indeed, the picture is largely similar in France. “In 2025, wage and purchasing power increases are expected to remain limited, while the French unemployment rate will remain close to its current level,” their report said.
The unemployment rate in France is around 7.4% due to a mismatch between labor supply and demand, partly due to the skills gap.
At a macroeconomic level, these sluggish European labor markets do not bode well, and it is clear that much remains to be done to address the broader problems related to skills gaps. But on the micro or personal level, software developers and tech professionals have a lot of leeway.
Top knowledge and programming languages
If you have the right skills, especially in artificial intelligence and software development, opportunities will open up for you.
Stack Overflow's recent developer survey found that the most popular programming roles are full-stack, back-end, and front-end developers. This was followed by desktop or enterprise developers as well as mobile and embedded applications. For its developer community, JavaScript retained its long-standing place at the top, followed by SQ, HTML/CSS, Python, and TypeScript.
On the other hand, GitHub's recent Octoverse report found that JavaScript was displaced from its previous place by Python on its platform. Thanks to its simplicity and extensive libraries, it is a language with many possible uses, especially in the in-demand fields of data science and machine learning.
GitHub says this is “the first large-scale change we've seen in the top two languages since 2019 – and it's a testament to the rise of Python that comes with the generative AI boom we've seen over the past two years.” have.”
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The rise of cloud computing, IoT, and AR/VR technologies has also created demand for languages that can efficiently handle these environments. Consider Kotlin, which is becoming increasingly popular as the language of choice for Android development. Go (Golang) is popular for building scalable network servers and concurrent systems due to its performance and simplicity.
Older languages are also experiencing a resurgence. For example, Java attracted over eight million new developers from 2021 to 2023, according to data from Developer Nation. It may be more than 20 years old, but its recent surge in popularity is due to its use and versatility in cloud and IoT.
C++ remains popular according to the TIOBE index and is currently in second place. This is attributed to its performance and scalability, particularly in areas such as embedded systems, game development and financial trading software.
However, not everyone is happy with C++, particularly the US government, which released a report this year urging programmers to switch to memory-safe programming languages. This has caused Rust's user base to triple recently. The memory-safe language is particularly attractive for systems programming due to its focus on security and performance and can therefore provide a strong alternative to C++.
While the major programming languages fight for dominance, the outsiders are always waiting in the starting blocks. In its 2024 report, GitHub highlights the fastest-growing languages. Some of these providers to keep an eye on include Go, HCL (HashiCorp Configuration Language), Kotlin, Dart, Trust, Luna, TSQL, and Blade.
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