the Labour Market Survey Report - Council of European ...

The ISCO classification used for Eurostat Labour Force Survey (LFS) data includes two categories:
• Computing Professionals (corresponding to IT (Informatics) Professionals, and
• Computer Associate Professionals (corresponding to non-professional IT occupations)
The work of IT Practitioners covers a range of IT functions. These can broadly be considered and
understood in relation to an Information System “life cycle”. The broad categories of:
• Strategy & planning
• Management & administration
• Development
• Implementation, and
• Service delivery
that form the core of the UK’s Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA – see Annex A), are
reflected in most if not all classification systems.
IT Practitioners work within both IT (supplier) companies and the many (IT) “User” organisations in other
sectors. Table 2 shows the estimates of numbers of people employed as “Computing Professionals”
(those in employment in occupations categorised by Eurostat as ISCO 213 – see below) or “Computer
Associate Professionals” (occupations characterised as ISCO 312) within the two kinds of employer for
the European Union as a whole (in 2000), based on the Eurostat holdings of figures from Member States’
national “Labour Force Surveys” (LFS - see below).
Table 2: Split of IT Practitioners between Supply and User organizations
(Figures for all EU Member States, as of early 2000, estimates rounded)
Sectors
(employed by all)
IT (Supply)
(employed by all)
IT User Organisations
Total
employed by all
Occupations
Companies:
employers
(NACE 72)
IT Practitioner Occupations
(“Computing Professionals” and
1,021,000 1,422,000 2,443,000
“Computer Associate Professionals”)
(All) Other Occupations 936,000 155,022,000 155,958,000
Total of all Occupations 1,957,000 156,444,000 158,401,000
While the two occupational groupings tracked by the Eurostat data are recognised to be only a subset
of the total of all workers involved in Information Technology systems (they do not include IT Managers,
Computer Operators or Engineering support staff – or indeed those involved in selling or marketing IT
products and services, who not need the advanced technical – software - skills – see Annex A), the table
illustrates the fundamental difference between a Sectoral perspective on skills and an Occupational one.
Labour markets, skill considerations and educational & training provision all operate at the occupational
perspective (“horizontal” slices through the “matrix” as shown), and thus this Study will primarily focus
on this view of the world.
C E P I S I.T. PRACTITIONER SKILLS IN EUROPE | Section 4 | 35