Business skills vital for future IT pros

A more business-focused IT profession is vital to the future success of both public and private sector UK organisations, according to a new skills initiative launched today.

The IT professionalism programme, dubbed Prof IT, is being backed by the British Computer Society (BCS), e-skills UK, Intellect and the National Computing Centre.

IT supplier body Intellect has begun the consultation process for the formal Prof IT guidelines, which are due to be published in autumn 2006.

The programme aims to create an industry-wide skills accreditation framework from the most junior to the most senior IT positions, with an emphasis on increasing the accountability and business-savvy of IT professionals.

David Clarke, CEO of the BCS, told silicon.com: "What comes out of all this is the need for business skills in the IT profession. That's very important going forward. The IT profession has to get much more involved in the business side and on business outputs."

One of the first outputs of the programme will be a paper defining the core competencies and skills required for CIOs.

Prof IT will also link in with the Skills Framework for the Information Age, launched three years ago, which aimed to create a standardised matrix of job titles and functions from entry to management level to make it simpler for businesses to plan future IT skills recruitment and training by matching their employees' skills to specific IT projects within the company.

John Higgins, director general at Intellect, said in a statement: "This initiative will hopefully go some way to engendering trust between suppliers and customers, thus enabling the delivery of successful IT programmes which will contribute to the prosperity of the UK."