According to OSKA data, 52 percent of ICT specialists in the European Union work outside the technology sector, compared with just 42 percent in Estonia. To reach the European average, Estonia would need approximately 3,400 additional ICT specialists in other industries, assuming some moved there from the technology sector. If employment in the technology sector remained unchanged, the shortfall would rise to 7,100 specialists. This illustrates the scale of the untapped opportunities in Estonia's manufacturing, service, and other industries.

Until now, there has been a simple explanation for the limited use of IT specialists outside the technology sector. Estonian companies are often small, and software development has traditionally been expensive. When building software required hiring an entire development team costing tens of thousands of euros each month, only a small number of businesses could afford the investment.

The rise of artificial intelligence has changed that equation. Tasks that once required a full development team can now sometimes be completed by just a couple of people. This gives smaller companies an opportunity to hire people with IT skills and develop solutions that would previously have been too costly.

When discussing the ICT labor market, attention is currently focused on slowing growth and the fact that young people are finding it harder to land jobs in the field. These are real challenges, although it is important not to forget how much Estonia's IT labor market has grown over the years.

In 2025, nearly 34,000 ICT specialists worked in Estonia, including about 20,200 in planning and development roles. By Estonian labor market standards, that is a very large workforce. At the end of August, there were 910 registered unemployed workers in the ICT field. That figure must be viewed in the context of total employment and with the understanding that zero unemployment is rarely a characteristic of a healthy labor market.

The exceptional situation was the earlier one, when unemployed software developers practically did not exist.

The long-running salary boom in the sector is also drawing to a close. While ICT wages often increased by 8–12 percent annually in the past, growth in 2025 generally ranged between 4 and 6 percent. Salaries have reached a level where maintaining the previous pace is difficult. Future wage growth will depend more on an individual's skills, responsibilities, and company performance.

More concerning, however, is the narrowing of opportunities for young people. Between 2022 and 2025, the number of employed ICT specialists under age 25 in Estonia fell by 24 percent, from 2,405 to 1,839.

At the same time, a record 1,123 students graduated from ICT programs during the 2024–2025 academic year. The lowest rungs on the ladder into the IT workforce have therefore become narrower. Employers demand experience but no longer provide opportunities to gain it on the same scale. If that situation persists, it could eventually affect young people's interest in ICT studies.

The solution exists, and it lies outside the technology sector.

We are accustomed to thinking that someone who studies programming should work for a well-known technology company. But why couldn't that person instead work for a hotel, restaurant chain, or retail business, using technology to improve efficiency and provide better customer service? Code does not care whether a company produces software or sausage. What matters is whether a business can identify what technology can help improve.

This also requires rethinking current educational approaches. ICT graduates account for about 9 percent of all higher education graduates in Estonia, compared with an EU average of 4 percent. Estonia ranks among Europe's leaders by this measure. As a result, continuously increasing the number of ICT graduates may not be the most sensible response to changes in the labor market.

Far more important is teaching technology creation and implementation skills to people in other fields. Technological literacy is becoming a broadly applicable competency, much like knowledge of law or economics. A law graduate does not have to become an attorney, and an economics graduate does not have to become a chief financial officer. Likewise, someone with programming skills does not necessarily need to work as a software developer.

Technical skills can directly benefit production managers, engineers, marketers, and entrepreneurs. They do not necessarily need a master's degree in software engineering. They do, however, need enough foundational knowledge to understand how software works, apply it in their jobs, and critically evaluate AI-generated solutions. Artificial intelligence may make software creation easier, but it does not eliminate the need to understand what is being built.

There is also a practical opportunity for Estonian companies. Many AI training sessions, workshops, and hackathons are being organized today. These events help participants discover new possibilities, but a single day rarely produces a solution to a company's actual business problem. In three or four months, however, it is possible to create a working solution that reduces manual work, automates a process, or makes existing operations more efficient.

If we want Estonia's IT labor market to grow again, we should not rely solely on the emergence of the next major technology company or on rapid expansion by those that already exist. Artificial intelligence has made software development more accessible for businesses that previously found it too expensive. The next growth opportunity may well be found in an ordinary Estonian company that has never employed a software developer but could accomplish significantly more through technology.

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