How SFIA Works

By providing a common language of high-level descriptions of complex skills, SFIA is able to communicate information without dilution or ambiguity. In this way, skills may be expressed by candidates and equally understood by recruitment agencies and employers. Until SFIA, no commonly agreed classification existed.

How SFIA is Structured

SFIA breaks down ICT (Information Communications Technologies) skills into specific task areas (for example, capacity management or database administration) against the level of competency within them. SFIA is not concerned with how long you have been using a skill, but rather how competent you are at it.

Consider SFIA to be a simple graph, or matrix, with skills on one axis and competency on the other. Where the two coincide provides an absolute description of a particular skill used at a particular level of competency.

ICT Skills

For convenience and ease of use, skills are grouped into broad categories, then into more specific subcategories and, finally, into defined tasks. After a consultative effort taking years, government and industry has agreed that a total of 54 defined task areas cover all skills in use in ICT

Competency

Competency may be considered as the level of responsibility and accountability for any given skill. At its most basic level, competency would involve nothing more than, say, a trainee acting on very precise instructions and under close management. At the other end of the scale one would be expected to create strategy and take responsibility for business and staff management. Competency is therefore a set scale.

Descriptions

Any skill at a specified level of competency provides a unique description of the role, responsibility and accountability. The descriptions cannot be altered – they, too, are part of the standard. This is incredibly powerful: not only can a candidate express his or her skills in a way that can be understood by all employers, but employers can also properly specify their recruitment requirements, eliminating confusion over the requirement at the time of job application.

Assessing Your Own Skills

To assess your own SFIA skills is easy. For each skill, simply select the appropriate task area and then match it against your level of competency. That's all there is to it!

Click here to view the skills

Click here to view the competency levels