This framework emerged from work led by the OECD’s Digital Government and Data Unit. I had the privilege of co-authoring the paper alongside Lucia Chauvet, supported by the Working Party of Senior Digital Government Officials (E-Leaders) and its Thematic Group on Digital Talent and Skills. It builds on years of OECD collaboration in this space — drawing lessons from country reviews, global case studies, and shared experience from digital leaders across the world.
Since publication, the framework has been embedded in OECD Digital Government Reviews and country support work. It’s designed to be actionable — not just a diagnostic tool, but a map for reform.
One example: we used it as the basis for work with the Government of Tunisia, which led to a resource called Understanding Digital Government — a companion website (formerly at understanding-digital-government.com) in French and Arabic. We worked with Public Digital to design a set of training materials that would help public servants engage with and learn about the five digital government user skills. Sadly, that site is no longer live. I had always hoped we’d be able to translate those materials into every OECD language, but like many good ideas, that ambition outpaced our capacity.
We also used that Tunisian project as an opportunity to work with the School of Good Services to provide training to the most senior decision makers across the Tunisian local government sector.
What’s the TL;DR?
he rapid pace of technological advance and the growing potential of data are transforming how we live and how we work. This is as true in the public sector as anywhere else.
Governments that want to deliver in a digital world need more than just technical upgrades; they need capable, confident, and collaborative teams. That means:
- Creating a working environment that encourages transformation,
- Defining and nurturing the skills that matter,
- And building the systems to attract, grow, and retain a digital-capable public workforce.
This paper presents the OECD’s framework for digital talent and skills, structured around those three imperatives, each grounded in real-world examples and practices from member and partner countries.
The Three Pillars of the Framework
Pillar 1: Create an environment to encourage digital transformation
Governments need more than strategies — they need workplaces where digital ways of working can thrive. That means:
- Digital leadership that’s visible, user-centred, and empowering;
- Organisational structures that enable multidisciplinary work and reduce hierarchy;
- A learning culture where experimentation is safe and valued;
- Tools and ways of working that support agility and delivery.
Pillar 2: Skills to support digital government maturity
Skills aren’t just about technical roles. The framework identifies that countries need to be mindful about the foundational “21st century skills” needed across society for people to thrive in the digital era and then identifies four categories of capability that rest on top:
- User skills — digital basics for every public servant
- Socio-emotional skills — collaboration, adaptability, resilience
- Professional skills — the know-how for delivering digital services
- Leadership skills — the ability to model and enable transformation
Pillar 3: Establish and maintain a digital workforce
It isn’t possible for governments to click their fingers and swap their existing workforce for a ‘digital’ one. And nor should they want to.
The answer to digital transformation is about having a workforce that is digital. There are important professions and career paths that need to be established but more importantly is creating an ongoing process that can enhance and equip everyone in the public sector to contribute to digital transformation.
This pillar focuses on how governments can:
- Attract digital talent through flexible recruitment and employer branding;
- Retain people by investing in culture, career progression, and equity;
- Support growth through structured development, mentoring, and learning opportunities;
- Build the systems to allocate skills effectively across teams and priorities.
The blurb
The rapid pace of technological advance and associated potential for the use of data have not only changed the way people live but also the way people work. This digital disruption hits all sectors, including the public sector, and this working paper emphasises pathways for developing a public sector workforce with the necessary skills to achieve successful digital transformation. It presents the OECD Framework for Digital Talent and Skills in the Public Sector, which highlights the need to create the right working environment, secure the right skills, and evolve the right workforce to support a progression from e-government to digital government.