Improving training, early guidance and connection to employment: keys to strengthening scientific-technological talent

According to the report “Challenges and evolution of STEM vocations in Spain”.

• Only 46% of students in Secondary, Baccalaureate and Vocational Training are clear about what they want to study and maintain the academic path initially chosen.
• Academic difficulty is no longer the main obstacle to STEM subjects: 56% of the students surveyed cited reasons of indecision or lack of knowledge of career opportunities.
• Mathematics continues to be a critical pillar. Its perception improves in primary school, but declines in secondary school.
• Teacher shortage: only 2.2% of Spanish teachers with degrees in Education (magisterio) complete specialties in STEM disciplines.
• Less than 20% of university enrollments belong to STEM careers. In VET, 22% correspond to ICT specialties.
• Women represent 30.7% of STEM graduates, but only 3.2% of employed women work in these specialties.

Madrid, February 18, 2026 – DigitalES presented today the report “Challenges and evolution of STEM vocations in Spain”. “Challenges and evolution of STEM vocations in Spain”. in the framework of a conference that brought together representatives from institutions, universities and the education sector to analyze the main structural challenges of scientific-technological talent in Spain (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics).

The study, based on a survey of more than 2,000 students, teachers and school managers conducted by DigitalES and Edelvives, is complemented by the analysis of national and international reference sources. Its conclusions highlight a structural paradox: Spain needs to increase its STEM talent to sustain competitiveness and face the digital transformation, but continues to lose vocations throughout the education system.

The general director of DigitalES, Miguel Sánchez Galindo, highlighted that only 4.4% of employed people in Spain work in ICT professions, while the objective of the EU Digital Decade is to reach 8.6% in 2030, which would imply incorporating more than 1.39 million additional specialists.

He also stressed that “there is still a labor shortage in the digital sector, where according to the OECD in Spain there are more than three job offers for every available professional, which shows a growing gap between the supply and demand of skills”.

Abelardo de la Rosa Díaz, Secretary of State for Education, who opened the conference, argued that the debate should not focus on “digital yes or no” in the classroom, but on how to integrate technology with rationality, pedagogical approach and ethical criteria. He warned that Spain must accelerate the training of technological profiles to avoid being left behind in the knowledge economy and stressed that “there is a wave of technological training in which we have a strategic obligation to get on board”, calling for a coordinated response from the education system to promote STEM vocations.

Andreas Schleicher, Director for Education and Skills at the OECD, then stated that it is necessary to overcome the separation between school and the world of work and move towards models where learning and working are fully integrated, with a commitment to more practical, continuous training that is connected to economic reality. “School should not be isolated from the world; the world must become a learning space,” he said. Learning is no longer preparation for work: learning is work itself.

María González Veracruz, Secretary of State for Digitalization and Artificial Intelligence, said that “the government is investing in numerous initiatives to promote STEM subjects, and is implementing the National Skills Plan at all levels to avoid social gaps in the knowledge of these key subjects. Spain has a high degree of digitalization, and we want technologies such as artificial intelligence to provide teachers with tools that help them to boost vocations in these priority subjects such as science or technology.” .

The DigitalES report, which continues research begun in 2018 and 2019 with separate studies on STEM vocations and Women in the Digital Economy, identifies three major factors behind the loss of STEM vocations from an early age:

1. TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATIONAL EXPERIENCE IN MATHEMATICS
   Although the perception of mathematics is positive in primary school, 72% of secondary school students surveyed acknowledge difficulties in understanding mathematics. This is compounded by a structural weakness in teacher training: in education studies (teacher training), only between 10% and 12% of credits are devoted to mathematics and ICT, and 87% of the teachers surveyed did not have the opportunity to study technical specialties.
2. VOCATIONAL INDECISION AND LACK OF ORIENTATION
   The main reason for not choosing STEM studies is no longer academic difficulty, as was detected in 2019, but indecision and lack of knowledge of career opportunities (56%). According to the DigitalES and Edelvives survey, only 46% of Secondary, Baccalaureate and FP students are clear about what they want to study and maintain the initially chosen itinerary. Although the percentage of centers that develop guidance activities has increased, a significant gap persists: the action most valued by students – visits to companies (33%) – is not among the initiatives that are usually carried out in the classroom, which highlights the need to strengthen the direct connection between education and professional reality.
3. DISCONNECTION BETWEEN TRAINING AND THE LABOR MARKET
   In primary and secondary school students, the data show high user-level knowledge of technology and the incorporation of new methodologies in the classroom. However, this knowledge lacks conceptual depth and is not always linked to practical skills or the development of STEM vocations. In the university, there is still an emphasis on the technical in the face of the demand for transversal skills and soft-skills in the labor market. Sixty-four percent of university students surveyed consider that their studies are not adapted to the labor market and that the excess of theory does not respond to the real demands of the profession.

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