With the deepening of the strategy for educational digitalization, digital technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data and virtual simulation are deeply integrated into the whole process of vocational education, pushing higher?vocational education to a new stage of digital and intelligent transformation from traditional information?based construction. As core subjects for cultivating high?quality technical and skilled talents, higher?vocational teachers’ digital teaching competence directly determines the talent?training quality of vocational education. At present, some teachers in higher?vocational colleges are confronted with practical problems including unbalanced digital literacy structure, insufficient adaptability of training modes, imperfect evaluation and incentive mechanisms, and weak awareness of digital ethics. Against the backdrop of digitalized teaching, this paper analyzes the profound changes in teaching logic brought by digital transformation to higher?vocational teachers, sorts out existing dilemmas in the development of teachers’ teaching competence, and constructs a full?domain empowerment improvement path from the perspectives of stratified and categorized cultivation, industry?education collaborative practice, construction of smart teaching environment, multi?dimensional evaluation and incentive, and digital ethics development. It is expected to facilitate higher?vocational teachers’ transformation from experience?oriented teaching to smart teaching, and contribute to the high?level operation of modern vocational education and high?quality development of industry?education integration.