Nigeria’s digital economy is on the rise. The numbers speak for themselves: ICT contributed 17.68% to the country’s GDP in the last quarter of 2024, driven largely by a strong telecoms sector. Broadband penetration is also climbing fast, reaching 48.81% by May 2025, which means more people are connecting, working, and transacting online than ever before. Add to this national initiatives like the 3 Million Technical Talent (3MTT) program and the National Digital Literacy Framework (NDLF), and it’s clear that Nigeria is serious about positioning itself as a digital powerhouse.
But there is a quieter issue undermining this progress: while technical skills are scaling, soft skills are not keeping up. Employers consistently highlight the same gaps—communication, teamwork, reliability, critical thinking, and customer orientation. These may sound like small details compared to mastering coding or data analytics, but they are what make the difference between a functioning team and a dysfunctional one.
Why Soft Skills Matter in Tech
The modern tech workplace is not just about writing clean code or building sleek designs. It is about collaboration—developers working with designers, engineers explaining problems to non-technical managers, analysts translating raw data into insights business leaders can act on. Global reports back this up. The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs 2023 lists analytical thinking, creative problem-solving, resilience, leadership, and curiosity among the most in-demand skills. Employers worldwide, and in Nigeria, rank these as essential.
Soft skills are not add-ons. They are the glue that holds digital teams together. Without them, agile sprints falter, remote communication breaks down, and brilliant technical ideas fail to turn into products that actually serve customers.
Nigeria’s Soft Skills Gap
Despite ICT’s growth, many Nigerian jobseekers are not fully prepared for the demands of digital work. The unemployment rate, officially 5.3% in Q1 2024, doesn’t tell the whole story. Underemployment remains high, informality covers more than 92% of jobs, and youth not in employment, education or training (NEET) still sit at around 14.4%. What this means is that while opportunities are expanding in tech, many applicants struggle with job readiness rather than technical ability.
Employers often point to the same challenges. New hires may be able to code or analyze data, but they struggle to write clear progress updates, communicate across teams, or handle customer calls. Deadlines slip because expectations weren’t clarified. Remote collaboration suffers when status updates are vague. Even something as basic as giving and receiving feedback can become a cultural stumbling block.
The result is a “soft skills gap” that threatens to slow Nigeria’s digital momentum.
Why the Gap Exists
Several factors explain why this gap persists. Nigeria’s higher education system still leans heavily on theory, with fewer opportunities for project-based learning that fosters teamwork and problem-solving. With informality so widespread, many young people’s first work experiences don’t expose them to structured collaboration or professional communication.
Bootcamps and short-term training programs have helped thousands of people pick up technical skills, but many of these programs still focus narrowly on coding or design tools. The professional behaviors that turn those skills into team contributions—like time management, stakeholder updates, or conflict resolution—are often left out.
Another factor is limited exposure to global workflows. Increasingly, Nigerian tech professionals are collaborating with teams in Europe, North America, and Asia. Working effectively across time zones, with asynchronous communication and cross-cultural etiquette, is a skillset in its own right. Yet many new hires haven’t had opportunities to practice it in safe, structured environments.
Promising Signs
The good news is that this challenge is being recognized, and some initiatives are already showing results. The 3MTT program, for example, is training Nigerians in high-demand technical roles while also highlighting employability. The National Digital Literacy Framework is pushing toward universal digital literacy by 2030, creating a foundation on which professional skills can be layered.
Private sector initiatives are also making progress. The Jobberman–Mastercard Foundation Young Africa Works program has trained more than 670,000 young Nigerians and supported over 149,000 job placements, with a curriculum that includes soft skills training. That scale proves that embedding employability training into technical programs is both possible and effective.
The Skills That Matter Most
For Nigeria’s tech workforce, certain soft skills stand out as especially critical. Clear written communication is at the top—whether it’s documenting a task in a sprint, writing a status email, or updating a shared board. Meeting discipline is another, ensuring time is used well and outcomes are recorded. Professional reliability, such as meeting deadlines or renegotiating scope before it becomes a crisis, is essential for team trust.
Customer empathy is equally important. Listening actively, understanding user needs, and tying technical solutions to actual value separates good developers from great ones. Finally, adaptability, cross-cultural fluency, and the ability to give and receive feedback are the skills that make Nigerian professionals competitive on a global stage.
Closing the Gap
What will it take to close this gap? Evidence suggests that work-based learning—real projects, internships, apprenticeships—paired with structured reflection is the most effective way to build soft skills. Learners don’t just need to “know” about communication or teamwork; they need to practice them, receive feedback, and improve.
Universities can help by shifting from theory-heavy curricula to project-based collaboration, with grading systems that value teamwork artifacts as much as final results. Bootcamps can embed soft skills training into their cohorts, simulating real-world sprints, customer interviews, and retrospectives. Employers, meanwhile, can make soft skills part of their hiring and onboarding, assessing candidates not just with technical tests but with communication and problem-solving exercises.
And for individuals, the path forward is simple but demanding: practice. Write daily status updates. Run structured meetings. Ask for feedback and act on it. Build a portfolio not only of code or design but of clear documentation, decision memos, and project summaries.
The Bigger Picture
Nigeria has the technical momentum. ICT’s rising share of GDP, broadband growth, and ambitious digital literacy targets all point toward a bright future. But the true payoff will come only when the country invests as much in the human side of tech as in the technical side.
Soft skills are what turn raw technical ability into lasting careers, effective teams, and innovative companies. They are what will allow Nigeria’s workforce not just to join the digital economy, but to lead in it.
Final Word
Nigeria doesn’t lack talent. It lacks translation—from raw potential into professional performance. That translation happens through soft skills. The faster we make them a priority across schools, bootcamps, employers, and policy, the faster Nigeria’s digital economy will move from promise to impact.