Data Literacy for Finance Professionals: What the EU DigComp Framework Says

Data literacy is often discussed as if it were one skill. The European Commission's DigComp framework takes a broader view: it treats working with data, information and digital content as one area of digital competence among several. For a Dublin finance, operations or HR team, that gives a neutral vocabulary for talking about skills, without tying the conversation to a particular tool or course.

This guide outlines what the framework says, based on the Joint Research Centre (JRC) page we read, and then suggests how a team might use it. Where we offer our own ideas rather than something the framework states, we label them. If your immediate concern is the quality of the numbers themselves, our guide to financial data quality management covers that side of the topic.

What DigComp is

According to the JRC page, DigComp is the European Commission's Digital Competence Framework. It defines digital competence as the "confident, critical and responsible use of, and engagement with, digital technologies" for learning, at work, and for participation in society, and describes it as a combination of knowledge, skills and attitudes. The page lists DigComp 2.2 (2022) as its most recent publication. The page shows no last-updated date of its own.

It is worth being clear about what DigComp is not. It is a reference framework published by the European Commission's Joint Research Centre. The page we read does not describe it as a course, a qualification or a certificate, and it does not mention Irish law. Nothing on the page we read says an employer must assess staff against it.

The five areas and 21 competences

The page sets out five competence areas and 21 competences in total:

• Information and data literacy: three competences.
• Communication and collaboration: six competences.
• Digital content creation: four competences.
• Safety: four competences.
• Problem solving: four competences.

The page also describes additional dimensions of the framework, including proficiency levels and examples of knowledge, skills and attitudes. It lists the 2017 DigComp 2.1 publication as having eight proficiency levels. This guide does not summarise the level descriptors.

The information and data literacy area

This is the area most relevant to the phrase "data literacy". The page names three competences:

• 1.1 Browsing, searching and filtering data, information and digital content.
• 1.2 Evaluating data, information and digital content.
• 1.3 Managing data, information and digital content.

The page summarises the area as covering articulating information needs, locating and retrieving digital data, judging the relevance of sources, and storing and organising digital content. Reading the three competences in sequence, one way to see them (our reading, not a statement in the framework) is: knowing what you are looking for, judging whether what you found is reliable and relevant, and keeping it organised so it can be found again.

Other areas that matter for data work

Data literacy in a finance setting rarely stays inside area 1. Several other competence names on the page touch the same work:

• 3.1 Developing digital content and 3.2 Integrating and re-elaborating digital content, which sit naturally alongside building reports or combining data from several sources.
• 3.4 Programming, listed as a competence in the content creation area.
• 2.2 Sharing through digital technologies and 2.4 Collaborating through digital technologies, relevant when a report or dataset is shared across a team.
• 4.2 Protecting personal data and privacy, relevant whenever the data includes employees, customers or other individuals.
• 5.4 Identifying digital competence gaps, which fits the idea of a skills review.

The page gives only the names of these competences in the text we read, so how they apply to finance work is our interpretation, not the framework's.

How a team might use it

Our suggestion: use the three competences in area 1 as prompts for a short, honest conversation rather than a scoring exercise. For example, a finance team could ask:

• Finding (1.1): Do people know where the data they need lives, and can they narrow a large export down to the rows that matter?
• Evaluating (1.2): Do people routinely ask where a figure came from, how current it is and whether it reconciles to another source before it goes into a report?
• Managing (1.3): Are files, extracts and working papers stored so that a colleague could find and re-use them? This is where naming, version control and data quality practice overlap.

These questions are ours, not the framework's, and they are a conversation starter rather than an assessment method. Once you know where the gaps are, the options for addressing them, including professional development, are covered in our overview of CPD training for finance professionals in Dublin. If a pattern emerges, for example that many people can find data but few check it, that tells you more about where training or process changes would help than a general instruction to "improve data skills".

Connecting the framework to tools

DigComp does not name software, and the page we read does not either. That is a strength: the same competences apply whether a team works mainly in spreadsheets or in a reporting tool. Once you know which competence is thin, you can look at practical tools. A team that needs to turn data into reports might look at our overview of Power BI for finance teams, but the tool is a means to the competence, not a substitute for it.

Software features and menu names change with versions, so any tool guide should be checked against the vendor's current documentation.

Limits of the framework

• It is a general digital competence framework for citizens (the page refers to use for learning, at work and for participation in society), and the competence names we read do not describe finance-specific skills such as reconciliation, forecasting or regulatory reporting.
• The page we read shows no date of its own, and the framework may be updated. Check the JRC site for the current version before quoting it in a policy or job description.
• We found no statement on the page about how many people hold particular proficiency levels, and we do not offer any figures.

Learnsignal's offices are off Baggot Street in Dublin, and we offer in-person training from there. For current details, see our CPD pages.

Frequently asked questions

Is DigComp a qualification or a legal requirement?

On the page we read, DigComp is described as a framework published by the European Commission's Joint Research Centre. The page does not describe it as a qualification, and it does not say that employers must use it.

Which DigComp area is closest to data literacy?

Area 1, information and data literacy, with three competences: browsing, searching and filtering; evaluating; and managing data, information and digital content. Other areas, such as digital content creation and safety, also touch data work.

How many competences does DigComp 2.2 have?

The page lists 21 competences across five areas.

Can a Dublin finance team use DigComp without a formal assessment?

Yes, as a vocabulary. Our suggestion is to use the area 1 competences as discussion prompts for a skills review. That is a practical approach rather than something the framework prescribes.

Used lightly, DigComp gives finance and operations teams a shared, vendor-neutral way to describe data skills; the real value comes from deciding which competence your team most needs to strengthen.