Denmark is number one when it comes to adopting and applying IT and telecommunications, according to an annual survey of 127 countries conducted by the World Economic Forum.

The tech-savvy Danes - who clinched the top spot for the second year in a row - were closely followed by Sweden and Switzerland. Britain came 12th, dropping from ninth the previous year, while the United States narrowly missed a medal at fourth.

Strong improvements were shown by the Republic of Korea and the US. Interestingly, India was down four places from last year at 50th despite a booming IT services industry, while China climbed five positions to 57th.

Scandinavia proved to be far ahead of the rest of the world with five countries in the top ten. The country to least benefit from IT was Chad at 127th, followed by Burundi and Zimbabwe.

The WEF's Global Information Technology Report measures each country's willingness and ability of government, business and individuals to adopt and use the latest IT, as well as the local regulatory, business and market environments.

“Establishing a pervasive and prosperous Internet culture is as much about creating the right business environment as it is about adopting the right technology,” the report found.

It noted that a country’s bandwidth connectivity was increasingly regarded as a necessity, “perhaps even a public utility along the lines of drinking water”.

The report also observed that developing countries, while not high in the rankings, were benefiting considerably from IT by ‘leapfrogging’ heritage technologies such as copper wire in favour of technology like WiMAX.

“In India, WiMAX is publicised as 30 times faster than 3G mobile technology and 100 times faster than wireless data rates, and has been widely anticipated to cure the problems of rural connectivity,” the report said.

However, a global shortage of ‘e-skills’ threatens to hinder IT deployment in many countries, as technology becomes pervasive.

“E-skills [are not] limited to IT specialists; they are increasingly required in all sectors and at all levels of activity in which creativity, innovation, and interdisciplinary teamwork are required as tools for competitiveness,” the report explained.

“Faced with such needs, our economies fall short of providing the necessary levels of e-skills required.”

Six of the world's ten highest-paying countries for IT managers are in Western Europe.

Further reading:

Europe leads IT pay scale Six of the world's ten highest-paying countries for IT managers are in Western Europe.

Risky business What does the future hold for the UK’s IT professionals – from the trainee to the CIO – in a global economy?

China's offshore opportunity The Chinese IT outsourcing industry has many challenges to overcome. But it also has the resources to pull it off.