The third part of the Digital Inclusion Observatory, produced by MedNum, focuses on the jobs and skills of digital inclusion professionals.

Digital mediation covers a wide range of jobs, at the border of several support sectors, with, first of all, digital mediators. It is difficult to give a precise number of jobs concerned by digital mediation.

In addition to the professional digital mediators, we must add the France Services digital advisors in place - nearly 4,000 today -, the professionals in charge of the management and support functions of the mediation, as well as all the professional digital helpers, public agents or private employees.

The Observatory's survey estimated the number of " people with digital inclusion activities" at 6648.

Among them, 3705 are digital mediators in the strict sense (56%). This figure, point out the authors of the study, is perhaps overestimated " because several structures questioned counted the France Services digital advisers that they employ in their staff of digital mediators".

Digital mediators

"The profession of digital mediator is relatively recent since it emerged about 25 years ago. It covers various practices and methods of accompaniment in order to bring the public towards their digital autonomy and to make them true citizens of the digital society."

Despite these definitions by actors in the field, "the job of digital mediator has no institutional existence: as it is not identified in the Répertoire opérationnel des métiers et des emplois (ROME), it has no official definition and no associated ROME code," observe the authors of the survey.

Digital mediators are, in general, fairly well educated: 45% of them have a level of study equal to or higher than a baccalaureate +3 and 84% have a degree higher than a baccalaureate +2. Only 16% have a level of study equivalent to a baccalaureate, a BEP, a CAP or no diploma.

The survey reveals a fairly balanced distribution between male and female digital mediators who constitute a relatively young group of professionals, with an average age of 39.

France Services Digital Advisors

Financed by the Recovery Plan, the recruitment, training and deployment of 4,000 France Services Digital Advisors (CnFS) is one of the pillars of the national public policy for digital inclusion of the population.

The Mednum survey collected information from 706 of the 3601 CnFS in practice in August 2022 (or 20% of them).

Their average age is 35. The proportion of women and men in the CnFS workforce is relatively balanced, unlike traditional tech professions, which are mainly male.

The average level of education of France Services' digital advisors is slightly lower than that of the "historical" digital mediators: 48% have a bachelor's degree and 23% have a CAP, BEP, bachelor's degree or no degree. Nevertheless, 18% of them have a master's degree (bac +5), compared to 13% of the digital mediators.

Motivations for becoming a CnFS are varied, ranging from employment issues to personal appetites. " The prospect of having a 35-hour contract and a professional certification recognized by the Ministry of Labor are also motivating factors. Thus, the CnFS profession can represent an attractive opportunity for professional integration.

"While the possibilities for advancement after this job are still uncertain, for the vast majority of the actors interviewed, "these CnFS are digital mediators in their own right - only their title changes due to the way the positions are funded."

All of the host organizations and CnFS interviewed for the survey indicated that they were considering the sustainability of the positions.

Other digital inclusion jobs

Around digital mediation gravitate many other professionals whose activities are more related to pedagogical engineering, training, support functions, or the supervision of professionals or volunteers. Others have digital mediation activities, without it being their core business.

In addition, many actors whose main activity is not digital mediation, in connection with their original activity (popular education, social support, professional training ...).

The category of " digital helpers" thus covers a wide variety of actors. They can be "professionals (mediators and social workers, youth workers, teachers, city hall receptionists, agents of public services such as Pôle Emploi or CAF...), volunteers (marauders) or simple individuals (family or friend helpers)".

"Professional digital helpers are on the front line when dealing with users who have difficulty with digital technology, even though supporting people in their digital uses is not always their core business.

In order to define the scope of intervention of these helpers who will accompany users in digital difficulties, the city of Paris, for example, developed, in 2017, a digital helper's charter, which aims to provide "an ethical and deontological framework" to digital helpers and to raise their awareness on the subject of personal data protection of the assisted public.

The supervisors and managers of professionals in the sector also have an important place in the structures.

Of the 260 employing organizations surveyed, 149, or 57%, indicated that they hired managers. "The latter have attributes specific to their function as representatives and team leaders, common to managers in all sectors. When structures grow and their digital mediation activities become more organized, their need for managers to operationalize the activities increases. The specificities of the sector require that they too be trained and equipped to meet the needs of digital mediation professionals.

Jobs for the future but still precarious

The observatory also sheds light on the status and contracts of digital mediators in their employing structure.

Volunteers represent 36% of digital mediators. This proportion can be explained by the presence, among the respondents, of large associative structures, operating mainly with the commitment of volunteers, such as Les Petits Débrouillards (900 volunteers) or the French Red Cross (300 volunteers).

Employees on fixed-term contracts represent 22% of the workforce, civic service volunteers 21%, employees on permanent contracts 14%, self-employed people 6%, interns and trainees 1% each.

By subtracting the volunteers from the calculation, in order to keep only the professional mediators or those in training, it appears that 34% are employed on fixed-term contracts and 33% are volunteers on civic service. Thus, "one digital mediator out of three has a precarious job and one mediator out of three is not a professional, but a young person under 25 years of age with a very low salary". Finally, less than a quarter (21%) of digital mediators are employed on permanent contracts and have a stable job.

Employees on permanent and fixed-term contracts also have a fairly low level of remuneration: 44% have a salary slightly above the minimum wage (between €1,300 and €1,500 net per month), 27% are paid at the minimum wage and 12% earn less than the minimum wage because they work part-time. Only 17% of them are paid more than 1500€ per month.

Faced with the difficulties of finding a stable, full-time or adequately paid job, 8% of digital mediators choose to work as freelancers, because the employing structures, often associations, do not have the means to employ them full-time.

In addition, digital mediators encounter many difficulties in the field due to the lack of human and financial resources of the structures that employ them.