Portugal was the European Union country where the number of people employed with information and communication technology (ICT) training grew the most, with an increase of 59% between 2022 and 2025, surpassing Bulgaria, Luxembourg, and Austria. In the same period, Portugal is the third country where ICT specialist employment is growing the most, behind only Lithuania and Croatia. A study by Stanford University concluded that there are no signs of widespread job destruction associated with artificial intelligence, although younger workers are losing ground in the professions most exposed to automation.
According to the most recent Eurostat data, Portugal is currently the EU country where online job vacancies for ICT specialists have the highest share of the total, representing 13.2% of all offers until June 2025. This value is more than double the EU average, which stands at 6.2%, and the highest since the fourth quarter of 2022. The number of vacancies for ICT specialists has been growing systematically since the second quarter of 2025, with an increase of 4.9% in the last three months, with Portugal being the only country with constant year-on-year increases over the last four quarters.
The Metropolitan Area of Lisbon ranks third among the 242 EU regions in the proportion of vacancies for these professionals, with 17.6%, behind only Ceuta and the Comunidad de Madrid. These offers result not only from technology companies' investment in the country, but also from multinationals' interest in remote work from Portugal, taken advantage of by international workers. ICT services are now responsible for four times more exports than 10 years ago, exceeding 5 billion euros, approximately the same value as the textile industry.
