Building a resilient RAF cyberspace profession

As the pace of technological change accelerates and operational environments grow more complex, the RAF cyberspace profession is reshaping how it understands, develops and deploys its people.

By adopting a skills-based approach grounded in SFIA but tailored to RAF culture and roles, the profession is strengthening alignment with operational outcomes while preserving its distinct identity. This article outlines how a shared skills framework supports interoperability, workforce adaptability and resilience, enabling cyberspace professionals to apply their expertise with confidence in uncertain and evolving contexts.

Strategic alignment

The RAF cyberspace profession focuses on ensuring that the skills of our people are aligned with the operational outcomes we are required to deliver, while still allowing us to work effectively alongside others. The RAF operates within defence but has its own identity, culture and professional pathways, which shape how skills are developed and used.

A skills-based approach only works if it recognises that context. Two people may hold similar skills on paper, but how they apply them is influenced by their environment and lived experience. A Royal Signals soldier and an RAF cyberspace aviator may therefore appear similar from a skills perspective, but their roles, cultures and expectations are very different. Both the common ground and the differences matter.

We use SFIA as a shared language for skills and apply it in a way that reflects RAF roles and culture, so it makes sense to our people while still being recognisable to others. By mapping skills through the RAF cyberspace skills framework, we gain a clearer picture of our capability and can see where it aligns with other services and industry, without losing what makes the RAF distinct. This allows us to develop our people in a way that remains authentically RAF while still supporting effective interoperability with partners.

Skills framework challenges

One of the main challenges in building a SFIA-based skills framework is the temptation to capture every technical detail of every role. Much of the work in cyberspace is highly specialised, and that depth is a strength. If every detail is written into the framework, it can become so detailed that it is difficult to maintain or apply.

The more useful approach has been to focus on what is shared across the profession. SFIA supports this because it describes the nature of the work and the skills required to do it, rather than tying everything to specific technologies that may change. This helps build a shared professional identity while still allowing space for specialist depth where it genuinely matters.

There is also a cultural aspect. Many cyberspace professionals are comfortable talking about technical skills but less so about skills such as leadership, communication and problem solving, even though these are often the skills that make the greatest difference in practice. SFIA gives us a consistent way of recognising and describing these too.

By focusing first on shared skills and then layering role-specific elements where needed, the framework remains usable, sustainable and meaningful inside the RAF and to external partners.

Workforce development 

The pace of technological change means it is no longer realistic to try to predict every future development. Traditional horizon scanning struggles because by the time a particular technology is identified, the landscape may already have moved on. 

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Our priority is therefore to understand the foundational skills already present across the profession and how they can be applied to new technologies as they emerge. Many of the key skills are already there: coding, working with data, analytical thinking, structured decision making and problem solving. People are often closer to being able to work in new areas than they think.

By helping individuals recognise those foundations and build on them, we avoid constantly reinventing the workforce around each new development. Instead, we create people who are confident in adapting what they already know to unfamiliar contexts.

Resilience comes from that adaptability: knowing your skills, being able to apply them in different situations and staying confident as the environment changes.

Governance, risk and resilience

Within the RAF cyberspace profession, governance has been developed by the people who actually work in cyberspace roles. A dedicated team drawn from across the profession designed and refined the skills framework with subject matter experts. That has been important for credibility and buy-in, because people can see themselves and their work reflected in it.

This people-first approach also supports resilience. In cyberspace, uncertainty is routine, so resilience is less about predicting every possible event and more about ensuring both people and systems are able to adapt when things change. Technology cannot deliver that on its own. It has to be supported by clear understanding of skills, strong professional identity and realistic awareness of capability.

Resilient technology can fail safely, recover and evolve. Resilient people understand their skills, can apply them flexibly and are comfortable operating when things are not predictable. The skills framework and an emphasis on continuous learning provide the foundations for both.

Collaboration and integration

There will always be limits on what can be shared outside defence, but collaboration remains essential. The key is choosing the right level at which to have the conversation. Describing what we do in terms of skills allows discussion without disclosing sensitive operational detail.

SFIA has been particularly useful because it provides a common language that is already widely used across industry and internationally. Working at the level of skills makes it possible to compare approaches, share experience and learn from others while still protecting what must remain confidential.

Becoming part of the wider global SFIA community, including through our engagement with BCS and the SFIA Foundation, has expanded our network significantly. It has connected us with people facing similar challenges in very different contexts, and those relationships have helped us test our thinking and learn from others’ experience.

Collaboration at this level supports modernisation by sharing ideas and practice rather than sensitive information, keeping us connected while remaining secure.