China Steps Up Digital Talent Cultivation to Fill Massive Industry Gap

Digital talents have become a key factor in competition in the digital economy era. Recently, five government departments, including the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Data Administration, jointly issued a guideline on strengthening the construction of data element disciplines and digital talent teams, mapping out a new blueprint for China’s digital talent training from four dimensions: discipline construction, vocational education, academic research, and industry-university-research collaboration.

By the end of 2024, the gap in China’s digital economy talents had exceeded 32 million, and it is expected to remain close to 30 million by the end of 2025. The guideline emphasizes deepening industry-university-research integration and places high hopes on vocational education, aiming to cultivate applied and skilled talents capable of transforming data elements into real productivity.

Compared with high-end academic education, vocational education focuses more on cultivating skilled talents who can operate practically at the front line. Vocational colleges have long attached importance to practical teaching and school-enterprise cooperation, enabling them to grasp market trends more keenly and continuously deliver skilled talents that meet industrial development needs.

The guideline proposes promoting vocational education in the data industry guided by industrial development, encouraging data enterprises to participate in vocational college teaching, jointly carrying out student training, technological research and development, product innovation and achievement transformation, and co-building "factory-in-school" and "school-in-factory" training bases. It also accelerates the construction of a "double-qualified" and "work-integrated" teaching team in the data industry.

Zhejiang, a major digital economy province, has seen a particularly obvious trend of such integration. Its digital economy added value has maintained double-digit growth for 11 consecutive years since 2014, reaching 4.8 trillion yuan in 2024, accounting for 53.3% of its GDP. Vocational colleges there have built national high-skilled talent training bases for the digital economy and developed characteristic professional clusters to meet industrial needs.

In Guangdong, in-depth exploration of school-enterprise cooperation is also under way. Vocational colleges there have designed curriculum systems based on job requirements and national vocational standards, updated talent training programs annually, and built cross-border e-commerce curriculum resource libraries with over 160,000 users to support teaching.

Despite initial achievements in industry-university-research integration, the rapid update of digital technologies and emerging formats have made it difficult for talent training to keep pace with industrial iteration. To address this gap, the guideline proposes building an industry-university-research integration ecosystem and establishing a national vocational education teaching steering committee for the data industry.

As the digital economy advances, talent remains the key to success. Facing a talent gap of tens of millions, vocational education is at a crucial juncture of digital transformation. Continuous efforts in deepening industry-university-research integration and synchronizing curriculum with industrial development will help build an effective bridge between talent supply and market demand.