In response to rapid digitalisation, vocational education has increasingly integrated digital technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and information and communication technologies (ICT), changing how skills are taught and developed. Although research in this area has grown rapidly, the field still lacks a clear overview of its knowledge structure, major themes, and emerging directions. To address this gap, this study aims to map the knowledge structure, thematic patterns, and emerging directions of research on digital technologies in vocational education. It analyses 203 articles retrieved from the Web of Science (WoS) Core Collection for the period 2021–2025, following a PRISMA-guided screening procedure. Using VOSviewer and CiteSpace, the study conducted performance analysis, bibliographic coupling, keyword co-occurrence analysis, and burst detection to identify publication patterns, thematic clusters, and research frontiers. The findings reveal four major directions of inquiry: learner empowerment and sustainability, teacher digital competence, institutional innovation, and policy-oriented skill development in the context of Industry 4.0. Burst detection further suggests an emerging movement in research attention from technology-focused adoption toward more human-centred, pedagogical, and governance-related perspectives. Overall, the study contributes to the field by clarifying both the intellectual structure and the changing priorities of research on digital transformation in vocational education. It also advances current understanding by showing that digital transformation is increasingly framed not simply as technology adoption, but as a socio-technical process shaped by pedagogy, governance, inclusion, and ethical responsibility.