Spain tech shortage hits 78%
- ManpowerGroup said on May 20, 2025 that 78% of Spain’s technology employers still cannot find qualified staff, leaving the sector above Spain’s national average. - The number did not improve from 2024, while Spain overall eased to 75%; tech hiring strain stayed concentrated in digital transformation roles. - The tension matters more now because AI skills became employers’ hardest global shortage in 2026, even as Spain still trails the EU in ICT specialists.
Spain’s tech hiring problem is not a vague “skills gap” story anymore. It has a hard number attached to it — 78% of technology employers in Spain say they cannot find the qualified people they need. That figure came from ManpowerGroup’s Spain release on May 20, 2025, and the awkward part is that tech did not get any easier than the year before. Spain’s broader labor market improved a bit. Tech didn’t. (manpowergroup.es) ### Where does the 78% come from? It comes from ManpowerGroup’s 2025 Talent Shortage study for Spain. In that release, the company said 78% of employers in the Spanish technology sector reported trouble finding qualified workers — exactly the same rate as the prior year. That left tech 3 points worse than Spain’s national average of 75%, which means this is not just a general hiring headache spilling into every industry equally. (manpowergroup.es) ### Is this a Spain-only problem? No — but Spain’s tech sector is clearly on the sharper end of it. ManpowerGroup’s 2026 global survey said 72% of employers worldwide were struggling to fill roles, down from 74% in 2025. So Spain tech at 78% sits above that global benchmark. The global picture softened a little. Spain tech, at least on this measure, stayed stuck. (manpowergroup.es) ### Why didn’t tech improve with the rest of Spain? Basically, demand kept moving faster than the talent pipeline. Spain’s overall shortage rate has come down from the 80% peak seen in 2022 and 2023 — first to 78% in 2024, then to 75% in 2025. But the tech sector held flat at 78%, which suggests digital jobs are not normal vacancies. They change quickly, they need narrower skills, and companies are competing for the same people at once. (manpowergroup.es) ### What kinds of skills are getting scarce? The broad answer is AI and advanced digital capability, not just generic coding. In ManpowerGroup’s 2026 global survey, AI skills became the hardest capability for employers to find for the first time, overtaking engineering and traditional IT. That matters for Spain because firms (manpowergroup.es)two years ago. (manpowergroup.com) ### But isn’t Spain supposed to be strong on digital? Yes — and that’s the twist. The European Commission’s 2025 Digital Decade country report said Spain is improving its number of ICT specialists and performs well on several digital measures. But the same report also said ICT specialists still make up a smaller share of total emplo(manpowergroup.com)on the people needed to run the system. (digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu) ### Why does that gap matter right now? Because companies are no longer hiring only for standalone technical specialists. As AI tools spread, a lot of the value shifts to people who can connect systems, supervise vendors, translate business needs into workflows, and manage data and automation together. The catch is that those hybrid profiles are harder (digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu)age and the global jump in AI-skill scarcity. (manpowergroup.es) ### So what’s the real takeaway? Spain does not have a simple “not enough workers” problem. It has a composition problem. The country’s digital push is real, but the supply of ICT and AI-capable talent is not scaling fast enough for employers that are digitizing at the same time. Until that changes, 78% is less a one-off statistic than a sign that Spain’s tech labor market is still running hotter than the rest of the economy. (manpowergroup.es)
