Framework governance - How SFIA evolves

Participants highlighted a shared concern: how to keep SFIA aligned with changing professional practice while recognising the real effort required for organisations to adopt updates. This balance between currency and adoption effort sits at the heart of SFIA’s governance.

The design–adoption tension

SFIA operates in a landscape where digital, data, technology, engineering and related disciplines evolve rapidly .
This raises a reasonable question: does a three‑year major release cycle keep SFIA close enough to current practice?

At the same time, organisations of all sizes invest significant effort in adopting each new version. More frequent change brings its own cost, especially for smaller teams with limited capacity to review, map and implement updates .

This creates a design and adoption tension for SFIA content - one that the consultation and the impact of working with AI brought into sharp focus .

Why SFIA’s stability matters

SFIA has been intentionally designed to be durable and enduring, not a reactive catalogue of tools, technologies or trends .
This stability is part of what enables SFIA to serve as a long‑term reference for:

• assessment
• career development
• role design
• workforce planning
• education and training

The consultation confirmed that this durability is valued, but also that users want SFIA to remain aligned with evolving practice.

Practical challenges of more frequent updates

Several practical considerations emerged when discussing more frequent updates:

Version management

More frequent updates would require clearer ways to host, navigate and link to multiple live versions of SFIA content .

Organisational adoption patterns

Different organisations may need different approaches:

• Some require stable links to the version they have adopted.
• Others may prefer to reference the latest version.
• Some may want to keep certain areas stable while adopting updates in others .

These choices affect role profiles, skills assessments, workforce planning processes, internal systems and governance procedures .

Not all changes have the same impact

The consultation also highlighted that different types of changes carry different levels of adoption effort:

• Low‑impact changes: Clarifications to wording, guidance or examples that do not materially change how a skill is used .
• Higher‑impact changes: New skills, changed level coverage, or adjustments to the boundaries between related skills — all of which can affect role mapping, skills assessment and organisational processes .

SFIA 9 introduced a change tracker to help users understand the scale and nature of changes, including substantive adjustments affecting existing skills .

As we consider more frequent updates, we will also need to consider how different types of change are governed, tested, versioned and communicated .

Ideas raised through the consultation

Participants offered a range of suggestions for how SFIA might evolve its release rhythm. These included:

• Interim or point releases between major versions
• A stable SFIA Core with more frequently updated domain‑specific content
• Clearer signalling about which parts of the framework are evolving most actively

These ideas reflect different ways of balancing stability with responsiveness.

How we will take this forward

We will work through these suggestions as we develop SFIA 10 .

• Some may influence how SFIA is released and updated .
• Some may be considered as part of the Foundation’s wider development planning .
• Others may not be the right direction when tested against SFIA’s design principles, operational feasibility and adoption impact .

In all cases, we will be transparent about what we conclude and why, and will report back through this site as our thinking develops .

Related suggestions raised at SFIA 10 workshops.

Disclaimer: These suggestions reflect the personal views of individual workshop attendees. They are provided substantially verbatim and do not represent the official position or endorsement of the SFIA Foundation.

• Emerging technologies and tools are evolving exponentially. Skills considered necessary today may become less in demand or be replaced with new skills (see the many other ideas raised here referring to AI). How does the SFIA team and community plan to keep pace and adapt?
• As the framework grows, consider a "SFIA Core" supplemented by domain-specific plug-ins (Health, IoT, Engineering and so on), with the Core continuing on a three-year cycle and plug-ins updated in between
• The impact of changes on smaller teams should be reflected in the timelines for updates. Smaller updates throughout the three-year cycle might work better than one big change requiring substantial resource
• Consider the frequency of updates carefully, to balance the changing industry with the effort to implement
• Shorter intervals between SFIA versions, given the swiftness with which technology needs change (particularly with AI), so that SFIA is at the forefront of recognising shifts rather than catching up with them
• The idea of interim versions (9.1, 9.2 and so on) could work. There would need to be clear definition of the scope of changes addressed in interim versions, but it would make it possible to address more frequently changing roles