Discover the Cedefop TalentGap index, a new web tool developed to enhance our understanding about how future demand for occupations (coming from both the creation of new jobs and the need to replace existing workers), expected labour market imbalances, and a set of recruitment difficulty aspects (e.g. competencies needed, tasks performed, experience requirements, relative wages) are likely to create shortages in the labour market. This new index combines aspects of both labour and skill shortages and is based on estimations utilising two Cedefop sources; the Skills Forecast and the Skills and Jobs Survey (based on McGuinness et al. 2025).

Each occupation’s TalentGap is ranked from 1 to 4, with 1 indicating no or very small gap and 4 indicating an intense gap. A high value of the indicator shows that, should job openings become available to the labour market, an employer is likely to face difficulty in recruiting available workers because of a higher-than-average skill level required for the job, which will have to be compensated accordingly.