Uganda’s digital economy is expanding. But as hundreds of thousands of young people enter the labour market every year, the bigger question is not simply whether technology can create jobs. It is whether those jobs can provide sustainable incomes and give workers a pathway into higher-value careers.
Between 600,000 and 700,000 young Ugandans enter the labour market every year, according to the World Bank. Its 2026–2035 country strategy places job creation at the centre of Uganda’s economic transformation agenda.
Government is increasingly looking to the digital economy, including business process outsourcing (BPO), IT-enabled services, software, cybersecurity, data and other digitally delivered services, to absorb part of this workforce.
Uganda’s Ministry of ICT and National Guidance has set a target of 100,000 BPO jobs, while a more recent government-industry ambition is to reach 150,000 BPO jobs by 2030. These are targets, however, and should not be confused with current employment.
The ministry reports more than 243 BPO companies in its database. Of these, 50 active firms are reported to employ more than 10,000 people directly, with an estimated 15,000 additional indirect jobs.
That distinction matters. Uganda’s digital economy is growing, but the number of jobs created is only one measure of whether the sector is delivering broad economic value.
Young Ugandans are already earning through content writing, graphic design, data entry, transcription, social media management and web development. An ILO-supported online gig-work programme illustrates both the opportunity and its limits.
Nearly 1,800 young people applied for the programme in Kampala and the Nakivale Refugee Settlement. By April 2025, 218 had completed training, while 70 graduates had secured 148 paid online gigs worth a combined Shs13 million.
The gigs covered content writing, data entry, transcription, graphic design, website development and social media management, alongside training in data annotation and generative AI.
These opportunities can provide an entry point into the digital economy, but the income picture is more complicated.
ILO research on Uganda’s platform economy found that the online freelancers surveyed in 2023 earned an average of Shs17,708 per paid hour. Once unpaid time spent searching for work and performing other tasks was included, the average effective hourly earnings fell to Shs14,583.
The same survey found a gender gap among the freelancers surveyed: women averaged Shs13,403 per paid hour compared with Shs20,026 for men.
These figures describe the surveyed freelancers; they do not represent earnings across Uganda’s entire digital economy. But they highlight an important feature of platform work: the amount a worker earns for a paid task is not necessarily the same as the income generated from the time invested in finding and completing that work.
That becomes increasingly important as Uganda seeks to move workers from routine digital tasks into more specialised capabilities.
At an ILO digital-economy showcase in 2025, Federation of Uganda Employers Executive Director Douglas Opio identified big data, cloud computing, cybersecurity and application development among the skills employers will increasingly require.
The Economic Policy Research Centre has similarly found that digital transformation is creating employment opportunities, particularly in medium-digitalised occupations, with significant transformation taking place across ICT, finance, media and professional services.
The implication is that Uganda’s digital jobs strategy cannot stop at getting more people online or training more workers in basic digital skills. The economy needs workers whose capabilities can solve increasingly complex business problems.
BPO could become an important channel for exporting Ugandan digital labour. The country’s BPO and IT outsourcing strategy targets 100,000 direct jobs by 2030 across domestic, regional and international markets.
Uganda has potential advantages, including a young workforce, English proficiency and comparatively cost-effective talent. But competing for international work requires more than low labour costs. Clients also look for quality, reliability, cybersecurity, speed and specialised expertise.
Artificial intelligence makes this shift even more important. Some entry-level digital tasks can increasingly be automated or completed faster with AI, creating a risk for workers whose livelihoods depend heavily on routine tasks.
The response is not simply to train more people to use AI. It is to combine AI capability with domain expertise, judgement, communication, creativity and problem-solving.
The real test is whether workers can use technology to deliver outcomes that businesses are willing to pay for.
That puts responsibility on several parts of the ecosystem.
Employers need to create clearer progression routes, invest in continuous training and give entry-level workers opportunities to develop specialised skills rather than keeping them permanently in routine roles.
Training providers need to align programmes more closely with actual market demand. Training should measure not only how many people complete a course, but how many secure work, what they earn, whether their incomes become more consistent and whether they progress into higher-value roles.
Government can strengthen the ecosystem by improving digital infrastructure, supporting industry-linked training, expanding access to internationally recognised skills and certifications, and developing policies that support decent work and social protection for digital workers.
The measure of success should therefore extend beyond the number of people trained, registered on platforms or connected to the internet.
Uganda needs to know whether digital workers are earning consistently, acquiring valuable skills, moving into better-paying roles and building careers that can withstand technological change.
With hundreds of thousands of young Ugandans entering the labour market every year, the digital economy has an important role to play. But the objective should not simply be to create more digital jobs. It should be to create digital jobs that pay, build skills and lead somewhere.
