Cyprus trails EU average in young people's digital skills

Cyprus remained below the EU average for young people with at least basic digital skills in 2025, while recording the bloc’s widest gender gap in favour of young women, according to a report released on Wednesday by Eurostat.

The EU’s statistical office reported that 63.9 per cent of people aged 16 to 24 in Cyprus possessed at least basic digital skills in 2025, well below the EU average of 74.6 per cent.

Across the European Union, almost three quarters of young people had acquired at least basic digital skills, reflecting the growing importance of digital competencies for education, employment and everyday life.

Denmark recorded the highest share of young people with at least basic digital skills at 92.1 per cent, followed by the Czech Republic with 91.7 per cent and Malta with 91.5 per cent.

At the other end of the scale, Bulgaria and Romania were the only EU member states where fewer than 60 per cent of young people had at least basic digital skills, at 52.8 per cent and 53.3 per cent respectively.

Eurostat also found that young women outperformed young men in digital skills across most of the European Union.

At EU level, 75.9 per cent of women aged 16 to 24 had at least basic digital skills, compared with 73.3 per cent of men in the same age group.

The same pattern was observed in 22 EU countries, including Cyprus.

Cyprus recorded by far the largest gender gap in the European Union, with 73.9 per cent of young women possessing at least basic digital skills compared with 55.1 per cent of young men, a difference of 18.8 percentage points.

The next largest gap in favour of women was registered in Slovenia, where the difference reached 11.6 percentage points, with 73.5 per cent of women and 61.9 per cent of men having at least basic digital skills.

In Austria, the gap stood at 9.1 percentage points, with 82.7 per cent of women compared with 73.6 per cent of men possessing equivalent digital proficiency.

In contrast, young men recorded higher levels of basic digital skills than young women in only five EU countries.

The largest gaps in favour of men were observed in Malta, where 93.6 per cent of young men had at least basic digital skills compared with 89.1 per cent of young women, a difference of 4.6 percentage points, and in Romania, where the gap reached 4.0 percentage points, with 55.1 per cent of men compared with 51.1 per cent of women.