Every year the IT and telecoms professional workforce creates 110,000 new IT jobs with 21,000 of those expected to come directly from education, according to the Government. ICT students and recent IT graduates are therefore especially interested in the professionalisation of the sector and acquiring industry-endorsed accreditation that can assist them early on in their career.
By Helen Beckett [Published 18/06/2010]
The arrival of a CEO, Tony Read – a former CIO of Nortel - at the helm of the National Skills Academy for IT last week brings one step closer the launch of a national register of IT professionals. The register is being set up to help individual professionals and employers make a better match between their respective skills and IT jobs.
The Academy claims that its register will bring IT skills assessment, development and certification together in one place. “It is designed enable school leavers and graduates to boost their skills and demonstrate their expertise, and so accelerate their careers and earning potential”, said Karen Price, CEO of the Academy’s parent, e-skills UK.
“For both employers and IT professionals, the National Skills Academy for IT will make it easy to find high quality professional learning, including a comprehensive portfolio of industry-valued courses and options for gaining new certifications and qualifications,” promises Price.
The Academy will enable IT professionals and graduates to create an IT professional profile within the National Register for IT Professionals. This will provide a mechanism that recognises and validates their qualifications and business skills acquired throughout a career.
The Register will use a consistent language that employers understand and have helped to formulate and the Academy sees this as an advantage a professional qualifications territory is getting more crowded. The British Computer Society offers chartered status for experienced IT pros while aimed more at the entry level are The Engineering Councils’s ICTTech and the City and Guilds’ ICT Practitioner Apprenticeships.
Nonetheless, endorsements from Microsoft, Logica and Hewlett-Packard, especially for new learning technologies, suggest that suppliers are keen to have influence over a nascent portfolio of industry qualifications. UK employers that so far have pledged their support for the National Skills Academy for IT to date, include Accenture, British Airways, BT, IBM, Logica, Microsoft and Sainsbury’s.
Meanwhile professionals at all stages of their careers are invited to sign up the professional status they need and allowing them to track all their skills in one place.
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