The global skills and competency framework for the digital world

SFIA for education & training

SFIA is the world's most widely adopted skills and competency framework. It is used by employers and professional bodies across the world. Education and training providers can adopt SFIA to define learning outcomes, curricula and to support the sales and marketing of their products and services.

How education and training providers use SFIA

Quality of learning outcomes

  • align curriculum to industry/employer needs and to improving employability
  • align industry placements and apprenticeships to employer needs
  • define required competencies and skills profiles to support role-based learning
  • map curriculum to skills and knowledge attainment
  • support developmental and evaluative skills assessment

Internal efficiency

  • save the cost, effort and time needed to develop and maintain your own skills and competency framework
  • learn and share good practice in the adoption of competency frameworks to support education and training e.g. for skills and competency assessment, learning objectives, career pathing
  • ensure your requirements are represented in the future development of the world's most widely adopted skills and competency framework
Marketing, promotion and sales
  • make use SFIA's globally accepted, language for skills and competency levels
  • increase global awareness and confidence in the products and services you offer - from different countries and from a range of different professional disciplines
  • benchmark your learning products and services against the globally recognised standard for competency
  • create learning catalogues with blended learning solutions combining formal and on the job learning
If you represent an education and training provider, please contact the SFIA Foundation to see how you can benefit from working with SFIA.

Developing and maintaining your own competency framework

Before you start work to develop your own professional competency framework it is useful to understand :

  • the activities needed to develop and maintain a framework and the time, cost and effort required
  • the links between skills, knowledge and experience in order to create an effective framework
  • how you can save time, cost and effort by using SFIA as the basis for your competency framework and/or use SFIA to kick start your own framework development 
  • the wider benefits of using SFIA and how you can join with others and shape the future content of SFIA 
SFIA is a not-for-profit organisation with extensive experience of developing and maintaining the world's most widely used skills and competency framework. Please contact the before developing your own framework. 

Some education and training providers who use SFIA

These providers work closely with the SFIA Foundation; they may be Accredited Partners, SFIA Council members, SFIA Foundation Board members or users of SFIA.

Licences and getting accredited

The SFIA Foundation operates two types of accreditation - for individuals and for the organisations who provide education and training products and services.

Mapping licence

  • The SFIA mapping licence is aimed specifically at organisations that provide qualifications, certifications or other services (for example, training courses or rate cards for hired staff).
  • If you wish to help the marketing of those services by showing how they relate to SFIA skills, this is the licence to use.

Recognition for your employees

Recognition for your employers is a good way to embed the use of SFIA in your organisation. The SFIA Foundation provides formal recognition for the people who are driving and supporting your adoption of SFIA. 
There are 3 levels of recognition:
  • SFIA Foundation level
  • SFIA Accredited Practitioner
  • SFIA Accredited Consultant

Bodies of Knowledge

A list of Bodies of Knowledge which are relevant to SFIA-related professional disciplines.

About SFIA

SFIA describes the skills and competencies required by professionals in roles involved in information and communication technologies, digital transformation and software engineering. Learn more about what SFIA is, its design principles, who uses it and why they use it.

SFIA and skills management

SFIA provides a common language throughout the skills management cycle.  This improves communication and understanding for all involved e.g. line management, HR and employees. By using SFIA, organisations can achieve a consistent and integrated skills and people management approach.

How SFIA works

At the core of SFIA is a comprehensive set of descriptions of professional skills and generic attributes. This section describes how it all fits together to form a simple, yet powerful, and proven approach.

The context for SFIA

SFIA is industry and business-led and at its core is the need for experience. SFIA's model for professional capability is holistic and includes experience, professional skills, knowledge, behaviours, qualifications and certifications. SFIA is used by the world's leading professional bodies to define their professional competencies, to support their accreditation schemes and their bodies of knowledge.

Browse the content of SFIA

SFIA is designed to be flexible and there are a number of different ways to browse the content of the framework.

Download the SFIA documentation

The documents you need to understand and adopt SFIA can be downloaded here (requires free registration/login). They include the 132-page reference guide to SFIA 7 (specifically designed for ease of use), a very popular A3 chart summary chart, and an Excel spreadsheet of the skill and skill level descriptions.  

Using SFIA

SFIA is non-prescriptive in how you, as an education and training provider, can use it. You can adapt it to suit your needs and desired outcomes. However, many SFIA users are interested in guidance from the SFIA Foundation to learn from others and to help drive good practice and consistency of outcome.   

Getting help with SFIA

Training in the use of SFIA

  • Accredited Training is the best way to gain a good understanding of the Framework and an insight into how it can be used effectively to deliver real benefits in enhancing the capability of an organisation through the management of the skills of its staff.
  • Accredited training follows the standard SFIA Foundation training syllabus and expected learning outcomes.  
  • The SFIA Foundation authorises Training Providers to ensure that their accredited courses are only delivered by SFIA Accredited Consultants. That means that their trainers will have active experience in skills management, not just knowledge of the SFIA framework.