About the IT professional standards
Making sure skills meet the sector’s needs
The IT professional standards meet employers’ needs to make sure the UK has the right technology-related skills in a changing global economy.
The standards have been developed by e-skills UK, the parent company of the National Skills Academy for IT, along with:
- employers in the private and public sectors
- professional bodies and other partners
How do the IT professional standards work?
The standards establish common terminology for describing IT disciplines including competence, knowledge and understanding statements that can be used and applied as appropriate.
The detailed descriptions set out in the standards:
- make it easier for employers to assess employees’ skills, reducing risk when recruiting and assigning responsibilities
- provide a basis for comparing qualifications and learning, making it easy to understand what they cover
- help learning providers in developing courses
- provide guidance for regulators when accrediting qualifications
- make it easier to plan and get value from training and development programmes
What disciplines are covered by the IT professional standards?
- business change
- information management and security
- IT service management and delivery
- programme and project management
- sales and marketing
- solution development and implementation
- solutions architecture
- transferable skills
How do the IT professional standards link to the National Occupational Standards (NOS)?
The e-skills UK National Occupational Standards are a subset of the IT Professional Standards. These set out the technical skills and knowledge that IT professionals need to do their jobs properly, currently comprising these four disciplines:
- solutions architecture
- solution development and implementation
- information management and security
- IT service management and delivery
The IT professional standards extend the NOS by adding disciplines and transferable skills.