Date published: 01.09.08 - not release date

Parity predict IT Professional Competency Model will help simplify 'skills and competencies'

E-skills UK have just released a new IT Professional Competency Model that will allow employers, educators and others to communicate using a common language and framework for skills, knowledge and experience.

Rick Firth, MD, Parity Training, said, “Having worked with many organisations where we have implemented frameworks and audited skills, the IT Professional Competency Model will simplify the process of understanding the area of 'skills and competencies' and provide the 'springboard' for a wider adoption, especially in the private sector.”

E-skills calls the model a ‘top layer’ view of capabilities that links through to skills and development structures including the Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA) and the British Computer Society’s Chartered Professional programme. It will also provide the framework for the creation of new development programmes and form the basis for qualifications reform and simplification, e-skills predicts.

Based on extensive consultation with employers of IT professionals in all areas of the economy, the model also includes transferable skills, such as business and personal skills, which apply to all disciplines. It is being adopted by employers and by the Professionalism in IT (ProfIT) Alliance as the basis for IT professional standards and development programmes.

Parity MD, Rick Firth, continued, “Recognition of the increasingly important business and personal skills to IT professionals will provide more confidence in accepting the benefits of an 'off the shelf' solution, but with the standardisation to be able to align it specifically to tangible business requirements and scenarios. Increasingly we are finding that employers want staff skilled in business and other competencies that facilitate team working, such as communications and other interpersonal skills so this new model is a much welcome support tool for recruitment, performance management and IT Training."

Editorial notes:

About Parity:

Parity, uniquely for its size, offers a full range of IT services to major companies including:

Business process consultancy, change management training, management training, technology training, programming training, development and management of complex IT systems, oracle and Microsoft technology and application skills, permanent and temporary IT staff

Customers across the group include Alcatel, Allianz, British American Tobacco, CISCO, Department for Constitutional Affairs, Department for Work & Pensions, Glaxo Smith Kline, HBOS, Hewlett Packard, HSBC, IBM, Ministry of Defence, Department for Health, O2, Perot Systems, Royal Bank of Scotland, Siemens, Sony Ericsson, The Cabinet Office, T-Systems, Invest NI, Northern Ireland Electricity, The Charity Commission and Scottish Power

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Parity PR contact:

Warren Tsoi
Parity Group plc
Wimbledon Bridge House
1 Hartfield Road
Wimbledon
London
SW19 3RU
Phone: +44 (0)845 873 6943
w.tsoi@parity.net