Strengthen, Promote and Standardise the IT Profession: Proposal for a European Framework

The report on “Development and Implementation of a European Framework for the IT profession” – prepared by CapGemini Consulting, EY and ICD for the European Commission - has just been released. It is a comprehensive practical application of the European framework developed by CEPIS and IVI in 2012. The report comes as a supporting action for the News Skills Agenda for Europe (announced in June 2016) seeking to help people acquire the skills needed for the digital age.

Lack of maturity of the IT profession, the need for education & training to be adapted, the costs of IT projects failures, the biased perception of the IT profession by the public: these are some of the elements that contribute to slowing down the efforts to reducing the digital skills gap, thus having the EU lag behind in the global talent race. Between 2015 and 2020, the demand for IT professionals in EU will increase by 2% though still not enough to close the supply-demand gap.

Although progress has been made and initiatives undertaken (e.g: for e.g. the launch of ethical guidelines prepared by the CEPIS’ taskforce on Ethics, creation of the ITPE network by CEPIS) to reach towards the recognition of a single framework as a standard for all European countries, much remains to be done. The report focuses on the 4 pillars (the European e-competence Framework), education and training (lifelong learning), knowledge (pan-European Foundational IT Body of Knowledge – BoK) and ethics (European Ethical Guidelines for IT Professionals) that are key to creating the right conditions for the framework to remain consistent. The framework is a means to providing all stakeholders of the IT profession with the relevant tools and standards. For instance, the report identifies employers, employees, education providers and IT professional associations as pivotal actors for the success of the framework and provides with some examples of necessary steps to be taken for each of them (e.g.: international recognition of IT skills, common language for IT staff, comparability of IT educational offering, suitable codes of conduct). To support its recommendations, the report also presents a detailed summary of the situation in and out of Europe.

Read the report and the brochure to find out more