Who Can Use SFIA? - Is there a charge?

SFIA exists to encourage appropriate skills development of staff in the UK IT Industry.

The development of SFIA was a joint initiative of companies and professional bodies in the UK IT Industry, led by e skills UK (the Sector Skills Council for IT), and supported by the UK Government.

As befits its role as a standard, SFIA is readily available.

End-Users

The primary intended use of SFIA is as a skills management tool within organisations that employ IT staff.

If you are in this end-user category, there is no charge for the use of SFIA.
However, you are required to register on-line, and to accept the conditions of the end-user licence agreement.

Please note that distribution of SFIA is a breach of copyright, so you must obtain it directly from The SFIA Foundation, or from an Accredited Partner who has integrated the framework with an added-value product.

Accredited Partners

SFIA as part of a product or service offering

If you intend to market SFIA as part of or in support of your own product or service offering, you will need to sign an Accredited Partner licence: this entails payment of a fee to the SFIA Foundation.

Using SFIA as a reference base for your products or services

For example, if you are a training company who has reproduced SFIA information as a navigation or course-selection aid for your customers, then the Accredited Partner licence entails the annual payment of a fee of £1,000.

Variants of this are possible if circumstances differ.

Translation of SFIA into other languages

There is already a Japanese variant of SFIA. If you are interested in developing and marketing a translated version of the framework, please e-mail ops@sfia.org.uk.