Nigeria’s tech sector is growing fast, but the people needed to sustain that growth are not keeping pace. Industry leaders warn that a widening skills shortage is already costing the digital economy as much as US$11 billion every year and could slow Nigeria’s push to make technology a core pillar of national growth.

The problem is not demand. Digital services are expanding, investment is flowing, and output keeps rising. The problem is execution. Companies say they cannot find enough skilled professionals to build, secure and scale the systems that power payments, telecoms, platforms and cloud infrastructure. The gap between ambition and available talent is becoming harder to ignore.

Government officials say the tech sector is making strong progress. At a public hearing on the National Digital Economy and E-Governance Bill 2025, Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, Dr Bosun Tijani, said ICT, which contributed about 16 per cent to GDP in previous years, is now approaching 19 per cent. The Federal Government is targeting a contribution of 21 percent by 2027 as part of its US$1 trillion economy plan.

The numbers support the growth story. In the first quarter of 2025, ICT output grew by 31.63 percent year on year, one of the fastest rates in the economy. Quarter-on-quarter growth stood at 8.35 percent, pushing the sector’s share of nominal GDP to 10.29 percent. But behind those figures, capacity limits are beginning to show.

When growth meets a broken talent pipeline

Telecommunications, digital payments and platform businesses continue to scale, yet the pool of professionals with advanced skills is thin. Analysts say this is no longer a future risk. It is a present constraint.

Nigeria’s telecom sector, long seen as a success story, illustrates the tension. Since liberalisation in 2001, the Nigerian Communications Commission estimates that it has created over 500,000 jobs and transformed connectivity. At the same time, the regulator admits the industry is heavily plagued by shortages of skilled manpower.

A 2024 assessment by the International Telecommunication Union shows how wide the gap has become. Employers need advanced digital skills from roughly 30 percent of their workforce, but only about 11 percent of employees currently meet that standard.

What is breaking down is the talent pipeline. Many graduates arrive with certificates but lack practical exposure. Companies are left to retrain new hires while trying to meet deadlines and manage costs.

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For local technology firms, the strain is already visible. Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Unitellas Edge Cloud, Mr Smith Osemeke, said the shortage of expertise in cloud architecture, cybersecurity and data analytics is slowing operations.

“Our operations require specialised expertise, but the local talent pool often lacks these competencies. This forces us to invest heavily in internal training and mentorship before deployment,” he said.

The result, he added, is slower delivery, higher costs and limited room to scale without risking service quality.

At Layer3, Chief People Officer, Dr Elsie Nemieboka, said recruitment often exposes a gap between paper qualifications and real capability.

“The majority are not industry-ready. We see candidates with certificates but little exposure to real production environments,” she said, describing the trend as the rise of “paper engineers.”

She warned that the burden falls on experienced staff, stretching project timelines and increasing burnout.

The impact goes beyond individual companies. Digital payments activity has surged, with electronic transaction values reaching ₦1.07 quadrillion in 2024, up 79.6 percent from the previous year. Transaction volumes climbed to 11.2 billion, showing how deeply digital platforms are now embedded in daily life.

Industry observers say this scale of activity demands stronger pools of cloud, cybersecurity, AI and data talent. The Sector Skills Council for ICT estimates that Nigeria may be losing up to US$11 billion each year in unrealised digital value because the skills are not there.

At a nominal GDP of about US$248.5 billion, that loss matters. Nigeria attracted more than US$2 billion in tech and fintech investment in 2024, but analysts note that investors increasingly look at skills availability when judging long-term risk. Countries with deeper talent pools are starting to look more attractive.

Some experts argue the issue is not a lack of effort but a lack of coordination. Professor Adegboyega Ojo, Research Chair in Governance and AI at Carleton University, said Nigeria does not yet have a joined-up national approach to digital skills.

“What is missing is an integrated approach that spans primary, secondary and tertiary education, ensuring a steady pipeline of skills from foundational literacy to advanced specialist capabilities,” he said.

Without that, he warned, ICT growth could remain driven by telecoms while Nigeria falls behind in areas such as AI, data science and cybersecurity.

Government agencies say they are trying to respond. Director-General of the National Information Technology Development Agency, Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, said the agency plans to train 50 million Nigerians and raise digital literacy to 70 percent by 2027. Dr Tijani has also pointed to progress under the 3 Million Technical Talent programme and major infrastructure investments, including a 90,000-kilometre national fibre backbone, 3,700 new telecom towers and upgrades to satellite capacity through NIGCOMSAT.

But many in the industry say infrastructure alone will not solve the problem. Professor Ojo pointed to countries such as South Korea, Canada and the United Arab Emirates, where digital skills are taught early and talent strategies link education, industry and research.

Mr Osemeke cited outdated curricula, weak collaboration between universities and companies, limited incentives for corporate upskilling and ongoing brain drain as obstacles that need urgent attention. He called for stronger public-private partnerships, tax credits for training and apprenticeship-based models that expose young people to real work.

Dr Nemieboka said universities must be central to building advanced digital and AI skills, backed by serious investment in research infrastructure. She added that soft skills, including communication, critical thinking and resilience, are just as important as technical knowledge.

Data from the Digital Bridge Institute underline the scale of the gap. As of early 2025, only about 7 percent of Nigerians aged 15 to 24 had marketable ICT skills suited to a modern digital economy.

Meiza Nigeria