The themes guiding SFIA 10

How SFIA 10 is taking shape

SFIA 10 is informed by the global consultation, alongside the broader direction of industry and themes carried forward from SFIA 9. The consultation also gathered a wide range of suggestions from via workshops held with the SFIA community in more than forty countries.

The themes below are not a final programme. They are the areas we believe matter most for the next version, and they will continue to develop as the consultation progresses and as we work through the detail with the community. The consultation process is open to additional themes/topics being requested. Contact the Updates manager or use any of the feedback methods described here.

What we are exploring

Based on the consultation and wider industry direction, these are the areas we believe matter most for SFIA 10.

Working with AI

AI is changing how a great deal of professional work is done, not only the work of building AI systems. For SFIA 10 we are looking at how the framework describes what people are accountable for as AI becomes part of everyday practice, how it might recognise the everyday capability to use and supervise AI tools, and how our guidance reflects the way work is actually carried out. This is the area the consultation raised most strongly.

Behaviours and attributes

The qualities that sit across all skills, such as how people exercise judgement, adapt, lead and collaborate, matter as much as technical capability. We are reviewing the behavioural factors and generic attributes so they continue to reflect what is expected of professionals today, including the human capabilities that grow in importance as work becomes more AI-enabled.

Regulation, legislation and compliance

Practitioners are increasingly accountable for working within a growing body of regulation and legislation, from data protection to AI and sustainability reporting. We are exploring how SFIA can best reflect these responsibilities, whether through guidance, existing skills, or how it describes capability across the framework.

Staying relevant across key areas of practice

Some areas of practice move quickly and have strong professional communities of their own, sometimes with frameworks of their own. For SFIA 10 (and for previous versions) we test how well SFIA continues to serve them, so its use is neither missed nor duplicated elsewhere.

• Cybersecurity - recurring. 
• Data and analytics - recurring. 
• Digital health - recurring. 
• Service design and service management - recurring. 
• Cloud - recurring. For SFIA 10 there is a need for the retrospective check: confirming whether the substantial cloud work in SFIA 9 achieved what was intended.
• Software engineering - recurring. 
• Operational technology, cyber-physical and industrial environments - new. IT and OT are converging, and SFIA already carries more OT-relevant content than is currently visible to that community. The theme is to surface and validate existing coverage, and identify what changes are appropriate.

Ongoing content pipeline

The remaining content evolves through the change-request pipeline and is summarised at release. These are maintenance-and-extension areas rather than strategic themes.

How SFIA evolves

SFIA is designed to be stable, yet some working practices can change quickly. There has always been a tension between keeping the framework current as new tools, technologies and giving organisations a stable reference they can adopt with confidence. We are exploring how SFIA is released, versioned and communicated.

How SFIA is structured

The consultation raised questions about the framework's own architecture: how skills are organised into categories, how they are sized, how they fit together, and the levels of responsibility that run through them. We are reviewing these so the structure and presentation of SFIA continues to serve users well.

Connecting SFIA with related professions

SFIA's value comes from being a shared, common language. We are exploring ways for related professions and domains to connect with SFIA and build on its structure, so the framework can extend its reach while keeping the coherence that makes it useful.

Easier to find, use and consume

SFIA is used by people and, increasingly, by the tools and systems they rely on. We are looking at how to make the framework easier to navigate, and easier to use as structured information that other systems and AI tools can work with, including programmatic access.

• Note: Making SFIA easier to consume is a strategic imperative and much of this work can be progressed independently of SFIA 10. 

Assessment and recognition

Suggestions ranging from the rigour and methodology of how skills are measured, through the tools and processes that support assessment in practice, to how the resulting credentials are recognised.

• Note: This is likely to be independent of SFIA 10 updates but is included here for completeness.

How we decide what changes

The consultation gathered many suggestions. Not every suggestion becomes a change, and that is by design. SFIA changes only where a change is durable, principled and broadly useful.

1. Some lead to changes: A suggestion points to a real need that fits SFIA's design, and it shapes the next version directly.
2. Some are explored differently: The underlying need is genuine, but it is better met through guidance, positioning or future work rather than a change to the framework now.
3. Some do not fit: A suggestion does not align with SFIA's design principles. Where that is the case, we explain why.

In every case, we aim to be transparent about the outcome.

What happens next

These themes will continue to develop as the consultation progresses and as we work through the detail with the SFIA community, the SFIA Council and the Design Authority. We will share more as each theme takes shape, and we welcome your continued input through the consultation.

Peter Leather

SFIA Updates Manager / SFIA 10 Project Manager