Digital Skills Barometer: What competences do we need for the digital future?
Digital transformation is about far more than introducing new technologies. As innovation accelerates, it is reshaping how we work, make decisions, create value, and contribute to society. Yet our ability to learn and adapt does not automatically keep pace. Bridging that gap is one of the defining challenges of our time.
What the Digital Skills Barometer shows
The Digital Skills Barometer (DSB), developed by fit4internet, measures the digital competences of people in Austria. Since 2022, it has combined self-assessment with objective knowledge questions, technology use, and attitudes towards digitalization. This provides a more comprehensive picture of both digital confidence and actual competence.
The 2025/2026 edition focuses on four technologies that are increasingly shaping everyday life and work:
- Cloud computing
- Cybersecurity
- Data
- Artificial Intelligence
Based on a representative survey of 2,273 people in Austria, it reveals a significant gap between perceived and actual digital skills. Respondents rated their own digital skills at an average of 63 out of 100, while achieving only 35 points in the objective assessment.
At the same time, technology adoption is already widespread. 51 percent of respondents use AI applications, while 65 percent use cloud technologies. The findings highlight a central challenge: people are increasingly using technologies that they do not necessarily understand deeply.
From digital skills to future skills
The findings show why digital competence can’t simply mean knowing how to operate a particular tool. Technologies change quickly. What remains essential is the ability to learn, adapt, evaluate information, solve problems, and connect knowledge in new ways.
This is particularly important in education. Complex challenges rarely fit neatly into a single discipline. AI, data, cybersecurity, and digital transformation connect technology with business, science, society, and ethics.
At IT:U, this understanding is at the heart of how learning is designed. Students work in interdisciplinary teams on real-world challenges, combining different perspectives and areas of expertise. Together with researchers, companies, and partner organizations, they develop solutions with relevance for both the economy and society.
“The key question today is no longer simply how much knowledge people possess. What matters is whether they can connect knowledge, make sense of new developments, and work together to develop solutions.”
Stefanie Lindstaedt, IT:U Founding President
The findings of the Digital Skills Barometer reinforce this approach. They show that we need to rethink education: making it more connected, more project-oriented, and more closely aligned with the challenges of our time. Only in this way can we empower people not merely to experience transformation, but to shape it responsibly.