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Government Digital and Data Profession Capability Framework

Learn about the digital, data and technology roles in government, and the skills you need to do them.

Last updated 30 November 2024 — See all updates

Contents

How to use this framework

The name of this guidance changed on 1 December 2023. Previously its name was ‘Digital, Data and Technology (DDaT) Profession Capability Framework’. This change reflects the launch of the new brand for Government Digital and Data.

Anyone can use this framework to:

  • learn what the different digital and data roles do in government
  • understand what skills are needed at each role level

Professionals in Government Digital and Data can use this framework to:

  • identify skills that they can develop
  • assess their current skill levels in preparation for performance and development conversations
  • learn about the typical responsibilities and skills of their colleagues

Line managers and team leaders in government can use this framework to:

  • identify skill gaps in their teams and opportunities for development
  • inform development goals and conversations
  • forecast their organisation workforce needs, to make sure they have the right skills to achieve objectives

Hiring managers in government can use this framework to:

  • create effective and consistent job adverts
  • assess the suitability of a candidate during interview

Architecture roles

Chief digital and data roles

Data roles

IT operations roles

Product and delivery roles

Quality assurance testing (QAT) roles

Software development roles

User-centred design roles

Further resources

Skills in this framework

Each role level (such as junior business analyst or senior business analyst) in this framework includes a list of required skills. Each skill is assigned one of 4 skill levels, reflecting the required proficiency: awareness, working, practitioner or expert.

As you progress from one role level to the next, the proficiency required for each skill will typically increase (other than in instances where leadership positions no longer require day-to-day use of the skill).

You can see the full list of skills and their definitions in the Skills A to Z.

Skill level definitions
Skill level What the level means

Awareness

Awareness is the first of 4 ascending skill levels

You can:

  • describe the fundamentals of the skill
  • demonstrate basic knowledge of some of the skill's tools and techniques

Working

Working is the second of 4 ascending skill levels

You can:

  • apply the skill with some support
  • adopt the most appropriate tools and techniques

Practitioner

Practitioner is the third of 4 ascending skill levels

You can:

  • apply the skill without support
  • determine and use the most appropriate tools and techniques
  • share knowledge and experience of the skill

Expert

Expert is the fourth of 4 ascending skill levels

You can:

  • lead and guide a team or organisation in the skill's best practice
  • teach the skill's advanced tools and techniques

Skills for chief digital and data roles

Chief digital and data roles (such as chief technology officer or chief data officer) do not have role levels and so their skills do not have levels. Instead, each skill lists digital and data requirements together with examples of leadership needed to be effective in a Senior Civil Service role.

Support

The Government Digital and Data Profession Capability Framework is maintained by the Central Digital and Data Office.

If you have a question or need support you can:

Find out how to propose a change to the framework.

Updates

Published 23 March 2017

Last updated 30 November 2024 — + show all updates

30 November 2024

  • Graphic designer has updated skills.
  • Interaction designer has updated skills.
  • Service designer has updated skills.
  • The skills 'design communication', 'designing for everyone', 'designing strategically', 'designing together', 'evidence-based design', 'iterative design', and 'leading design' have been added to the 'Skills A to Z' page.
  • The skills 'coding and scripting (infrastructure engineer)', 'communication', 'community collaboration (front-end developer)', 'consultancy (business analysis)', 'data standards (data architect)', 'development process optimisation (management)', 'IT infrastructure (network architect)', 'problem resolution (data)', and 'systems integration (network architect)' have been merged with similar skills and removed from the 'Skills A to Z' page.
  • The skills 'digital perspective', 'evidence-and-context-based design', 'prototyping in code', 'tools and software' have been removed from 'Skills A to Z' page as they are no longer required by any role.
  • Updated the content of 20 skills to improve accuracy, clarity and consistency with the rest of the framework: 'applied social sciences, (previously applied knowledge of social sciences)', 'asset and configuration management', 'availability and capacity management', 'coding and scripting', 'community collaboration', 'consultancy', 'cyber incident management (previously 'cyber incident strategy and management)', 'data engineering (previously data engineering and manipulation)', 'data standards', 'data visualisation', 'development process optimisation', 'information security', 'IT infrastructure', 'modern development standards (previously modern standards approach)', 'problem management', 'security technology', 'service management framework knowledge', 'IT service reporting (previously 'service reporting), 'service support', 'systems integration'.

22 October 2024

  • Data governance manager has had an error corrected in the indicative job grade displayed for the 'data governance manager' role level.
  • User researcher has had an error corrected in the skills required for the 'senior user researcher' role level.

7 October 2024

30 August 2024

  • Analytics engineer was added to the data role group.
  • Machine learning engineer was added to the data role group.
  • User researcher has updated skills.
  • The skills 'agile research practices', 'research management, leadership and assurance' and 'user-centred practice and advocacy' have been added to the 'skills A to Z' page.
  • The skills 'society and technology', 'strategic insight' and 'user-centred and agile practices' have been removed from the 'skills A to Z' page.
  • Updated the content of 13 skills to improve clarity and consistency with the rest of the framework: 'business modelling', 'business process improvement', 'business process testing', 'change management', 'continuity management', 'customer service management', 'data maturity', 'leadership and guidance (frontend developer)', 'metadata management', 'stakeholder relationship management', 'user research methods', 'web performance optimisation'.

31 May 2024

  • Enterprise architect has updated skills.
  • Solution architect has updated skills.
  • Technical architect has updated skills.
  • The skills 'making architectural decisions', 'strategy design' and 'technical design throughout the life cycle' have been added to the 'skills A to Z' page. The 'enterprise and business architecture' skill has been renamed 'enterprise architecture'. The proficiency level descriptions for 'problem definition and shaping' and 'enterprise architecture' have been updated.
  • The skills 'communicating between the technical and non-technical (technical architect)', 'modern standards approach (frontend developer), 'problem management (data architect)', 'strategy', 'turning business problems into technical design' and 'understanding the whole context' have been removed from the 'skills A to Z' page.
  • Indicative job grades for 17 roles have been updated according to the latest data on the most common grades for these roles across government.

28 February 2024

  • Digital portfolio manager was added to the product and delivery role group.
  • Solution architect was added to the architecture role group.
  • The skills 'architecture communication' and 'architect for the whole context' have been added to the 'Skills A to Z' page.

1 December 2023

  • Name of framework changed to ‘Government Digital and Data Profession Capability Framework’. References to ‘DDaT’ changed to ‘Government Digital and Data' across all pages. Name of skill 'DDaT perspective' changed to 'Government Digital and Data perspective'.

28 November 2023

  • Business architect was added to the architecture role group. The new skill 'business architecture' was added to the 'Skills A to Z' page.

31 July 2023

  • The technical role group was removed. The roles within it were moved into other role groups or removed from the DDaT Profession Capability Framework.
  • A new software development role group was added.
  • Development operations (DevOps) engineer was moved to the new software development role group.
  • Frontend developer was moved to the new software development role group.
  • Software developer was moved to the new software development role group.
  • Infrastructure engineer was moved to the IT operations role group.
  • Specialist infrastructure engineer was removed from the DDaT Profession Capability Framework.
  • Technical specialist architect was removed from the DDaT Profession Capability Framework.
  • A new architecture role group was added.
  • Data architect was moved to the new architecture role group.
  • Enterprise architect was moved to the new architecture role group.
  • Network architect was moved to the new architecture role group.
  • Security architect was moved to the new architecture role group.
  • Technical architect was moved to the new architecture role group.

31 March 2023

30 August 2022

3 December 2020

7 January 2020

  • The content in the Digital, Data and Technology Profession Capability Framework has been restructured to make it easier to access the role descriptions and the skills associated with individual roles. Each job role is now presented on one page, including all the levels and the skills.

28 December 2018

  • Removed information about Civil Service Competencies as these will no longer be used after 6 January 2019.

23 March 2017

  • The Digital, Data and Technology Profession Capability Framework was first published.