Employers in government and industry should put a greater importance on qualified IT professionals to lead and manage major IT projects, according to a significant report by three of the UK’s most influential IT membership bodies.

The number of public sector IT projects that fail or generate huge overspends is an issue not just for government, but for the UK IT industry ­ and private sector IT has also had its share of disasters.

Solving these high-profile problems could save the taxpayer billions of pounds. According to Engineering Values in IT, a new study from the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAE), the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), and the British Computer Society (BCS), such failings could be avoided by making sure that qualified Chartered Engineers (CEng) and Chartered IT Professionals (CITP) are employed to lead and manage major IT projects.

The 40-page report recommends that IT professionals aim to attain chartered status and that those achieving such accreditation should be given preference for leading IT programmes.

The RAE said the report was of critical importance to UK IT. “My biggest disappointment is that we know what should be done, but it’s still not being done,” said IET board member and RAE Fellow Suzanne Flynn.

“IT is still treated as something you do in a back office instead of a discipline.” Nick Masterson-Jones, IT director at banking payments firm Vocalink , said it was ridiculous that so many IT projects still go so badly wrong.

“The resistance to the adoption of good [software] engineering techniques seems to be cost,” he said. “The costs of making mistakes is far higher than doing it right first time ­ and it’s less stressful for everybody involved.”

The major recommendation of the study was the advice to IT professionals to achieve chartered status “and thereby commit to the professional and ethical code of an institution”.

An important aspect of that is maintaining professional knowledge and competency through continuing professional development. “Procurers of large IT systems in government and industry should employ chartered professionals to lead and manage these projects,” says the report.

“Appropriate chartered status should be a requirement on leading engineers engaged in development of systems with implications for safety or national security.”

But one of the main challenges is how to encourage IT professionals to achieve chartered status, said RAE Fellow Dr Allan Fox. “We’re arguing the case for the take-up of CEng and CITP by employers, which would have an immediate impact,” he said.

Andrew Ramsay, chief executive of the Engineering Council UK, said strong foundations also need to be put in place among IT students. “What they learn at university is only part of what they need to deploy to behave professionally. They should look for opportunities that would allow them to develop a professional career,” he said, while recognising that the “pay off” for such endeavours “takes many years of investment”.

But BCS deputy president Elizabeth Sparrow said that persuading IT professionals to seek chartered status will not work unless employers feel it makes a significant difference.

Professor Jim Norton, chairman of the BCS professionalism board, said that achieving the aims of the report requires a “willing audience” on the part of business when there is already a lack of professional qualifications in UK boardrooms.

“We need to make sure people are currently competent, rather than just historically competent ­ that’s a key issue for all the institutions,” he said.