Workforce Development / SFIA

After some two years of collaborative effort, we are about to launch the Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA).

It is a characteristic of most "professions", whether medics, vets, lawyers, accountants that they have agreed processes for the recruitment, training, development and certification of staff as competent practitioners. Despite the best efforts of many individuals and organisations the IS community has not managed to reach broad agreement on such a scheme, until now.

SFIA embraces skills needs of an organisation by providing a simple but elegant "lightweight" matrix of skills descriptors organised into seven levels of accountability; follow, assist, apply, enable, advise, initiate/influence, strategy/inspire/mobilise. There are six major categories of activity; Strategy & planning, Management & Administration, Sales & Marketing, Development & Implementation, Service Delivery and Use. The categories are further subdivided and the matrix contains 71 detailed Skills Descriptors where accountability and category present a populated intersect on the matrix. You don't strategize at level one!

SFIA can sit above other standards which are written to finer levels of discrimination, our Occupational Standards, the British Computer Societies' Industry Structure Model, to which cross references have been made.

SFIA has many uses, its adoption has been recommended by CCTA, it can assist with, individual/team assessment, career planning, skills audit, planning future skills needs, a common language to communicate between suppliers, procurers and users, an agreed set of definitions to produce and analyse labour market intelligence. It is a powerful lever to increase the UK's competitiveness to enable it to be a world-wide centre of Information Systems excellence.
We hope to announce a launch Plan soon.

Partners included

• Information Systems suppliers: EDS, Microsoft, IBM, Oracle;
• Users: the Post Office, Norwich Union, Reading Borough Council, Ministry of Defence
• Industry Associations: AISS (Alliance for Information Systems Skills), BCS (British Computer Society), IMIS (Institute for the Management of Information Systems), IEE (Institution of Electrical Engineers), CSSA (Computing Services & Software Association), and others.
• Government and its agencies, DfEE (Department for Education & Employment), DTI (Department of Trade & Industry), MOD (Ministry Of Defence) and CCTA (Central Computer & Telecommunications Agency)

If you would like further information, or to become involved, please look at the dedicated web site at www.sfia.org.uk or get in touch with Gordon Greaves on or e-mail