56% salary premium for AI-skilled workers in 2024, double the 2023 level. In Europe, AI skills generate a 23% salary premium compared to 13% for a Master’s degree according to the Oxford Internet Institute. A shift that is reshaping the rules of social advancement.
The emergence of a new hierarchy of competencies is challenging diplomas as markers of professional success. But does this transformation promise greater equal opportunity or reproduce inequalities in another form?
AI Surpasses Traditional Diplomas in Wage Evaluation
The salary premium for AI professionals has jumped from 25% to 56% in a single year. In 2025, AI specialists earned 18.7% more than their non-AI peers, compared to 15.8% in 2024. The increase far exceeds premiums linked to diplomas.
In Europe, higher education graduates earn on average 38% more than those with a medium level of education, and 68% more than those with a low level. Against 23% premium for AI skills versus 13% for a Master’s degree, the gap is narrowing. Specialized technical skills are now directly competing with the value of university diplomas.
Demand for formal diplomas is decreasing across all jobs, but particularly for positions exposed to AI. The percentage of AI-augmented jobs requiring a diploma dropped 7 points between 2019 and 2024, falling from 66% to 59%, and 9 points (from 53% to 44%) for jobs automated by AI.
Skills-based hiring evaluates candidates on their technical abilities, problem-solving aptitudes, and competencies rather than on their formal education or work experience. In 2024, this approach is becoming a determining trend in recruitment.
Europe Facing the Challenge of Mass AI Skills Training
The European Union aims to employ 20 million people in technology professions by 2030, but projections indicate that only 12 million professionals will be available, creating a deficit of 8 million workers. Currently, 75% of European employers report difficulty finding qualified technology talents.
The European Commission launched the “Union of Skills” strategy in March 2025, centered on continuous training, recognition of non-academic competencies, and investment in adult learning.
According to a European Commission fourth quarter 2024 report, 90% of jobs across all sectors will require basic digital skills by 2030. Nearly half of young Europeans lack basic digital skills — an indicator of the scale of the shortfall.
Professional certifications demonstrate their direct impact on wages. AWS Certified Data Analytics certifications are correlated with average salaries of €114,000, while Google Professional Data Engineer certifications are associated with average compensation of €147,000. Enough to fuel the race for certifications.
Unequal Access to AI Skills Deepens New Fractures
The rapid advances in artificial intelligence have widened the digital divide, creating what is now called the AI divide. This divide represents the inequality of access, benefits, and opportunities in AI technology across diverse regions, communities, and socioeconomic groups. Already marginalized populations — women, minorities, people with disabilities — are most exposed.
In the active population, women are more likely to be exposed to AI-related employment changes but face a significant skills gap compared to men. A recent survey across 31 countries shows that nearly equal numbers of adults report being nervous (52%) and enthusiastic (54%) about AI products and services.
The disparity in access based on institutional resources risks creating a “generative AI divide,” where students at certain universities are significantly better prepared for an AI-powered future than others. The risk: reproducing traditional inequalities in technological form.
Since AI and past digital usage appear to be complementary, regions may enter into competition to attract the necessary resources to strengthen their digital base, which in turn favors AI deployment. The rivalry for skilled labor and infrastructure risks consolidating the advantage of already digitally advanced regions, deepening territorial disparities.
The Meritocratic Promise Tested Against Social Realities
The European continent has an impressive record of improving diversity, meritocracy, and inclusion. Improving social mobility could be a powerful lever to boost European productivity. A large body of research supports the link between social mobility and productivity-based growth.
Yet meritocracy, defined as a societal model in which social positions are distributed based on merit, has been criticized for several reasons. First, meritocracy personalizes success and failure, ignoring the relevance of structural barriers to achievement. Second, meritocracy legitimizes economic inequalities that result from interpersonal differences in skills and talents.
Despite declining intergenerational mobility, reinforcing links between family background and children’s economic outcomes, Western citizens continue to believe in meritocracy. Despite falling social mobility rates, a majority of the public in Western countries believes that societal success reflects the meritocratic rewards of hard work.
Even if access to education equalizes, families with substantial resources find new ways to keep their children ahead within expanding educational categories through the quality of the institution attended by students or the choice of selective programs or particular fields of study. The empirical claim that providing access to more advanced levels of education will improve opportunities for less-favored families is contradicted by the increased relevance of more detailed educational categories.
AI competency creates a new professional hierarchy in Europe. It promises to value talent regardless of diploma — and according to some projections, mobilizing these underutilized talents could boost European GDP by as much as 9%. But without proactive access policies, the “technological meritocracy” risks reproducing the same exclusions under another name.