In order to investigate the extent to which the education offer of advanced digital skills in Europe matches
labour market needs, this study estimates the supply and demand of university places for studies covering
the technological domains of Artificial Intelligence (AI), High Performance Computing (HPC), Cybersecurity (CS)
and Data Science (DS), in the EU27, United Kingdom and Norway.
The difference between demand and supply of tertiary education places (Bachelor and Master or equivalent
level) in the mentioned technological domains is referred in this report as unmet students’ demand of places,
or unmet demand. Demanded places, available places and unmet demand are estimated for the following
dimensions: (a) the tertiary education level in which this demand is observed: Bachelor and Master or
equivalent programmes; (b) the programme’s scope, or depth with which education programmes address the
technological domain: broad and specialised; and (c) the main fields of education where this tuition is offered:
Business Administration and Law; Natural sciences and Mathematics; Information and Communication
Technology (ICT); and Engineering, Manufacturing and Construction, with the remaining fields grouped
together in a fifth category.
From these estimations, it is concluded that the number of available places in the EU27, at Bachelor level,
reaches 587,000 for studies with AI content, 106,000 places offered in HPC, 307,000 places in CS and
444,000 places offered in the domain of DS. At Master level this demand is comparatively lower, except for
the DS domain, were it equals the offer at bachelor level. DS outnumbers AI in demand of places at Master
level, with 602,000 and 535,000 demanded places, respectively. The unmet demand for AI, HPC, CS and DS in
EU27 at MSc level is approximately 150,000, 33,000, 59,000 and 167,000 places, respectively. At BSc level,
the unmet demand reaches 273,000, 53,000, 159,000 and 213,000 places, respectively. Another finding is
that the unmet demand for broad academic programmes is higher than for specialised programmes of all
technological domains and education levels (Bachelor and Master).
Higher availability of places for AI, HPC, CS and DS domains is found for academic programmes taught in the
ICT field of education, both at Bachelor and Master levels. For Bachelor studies, Germany and Finland are
estimated as the countries with the highest unmet demand in AI, HPC, CS and DS, either with a broad or
specialised scope. United Kingdom is the only studied country offering places for all fields of education and
technological domains at Bachelor level and Master level. For Master studies, this is also found in Germany,
Ireland, France and Portugal
