Trump administration tosses degree requirements for federal IT managers

The Trump administration is tossing out strict higher-education requirements for federal tech roles and instead shifting the focus to candidates’ hands-on skills and competencies to do the job.

Recently revised job standards for federal technology managers aim to move agencies toward assessing job candidates based on skills, while reducing emphasis on whether candidates have advanced degrees.

The Office of Personnel Management recently announced the overhaul of qualifications and standards for the government’s 2210 job series, which covers governmentwide information technology (IT) management positions.

“For the first time, your fitness for the job will be determined via a formal assessment rather than based upon whether you have a bachelor’s degree or some minimum amount of work experience,” OPM Director Scott Kupor wrote in an April 14 blog post about the job series update.

It’s the first step in a broader workforce reform project that OPM has dubbed the “federal workforce competency initiative.” OPM said eventually, it plans to revise all 604 federal job series to ensure they are based on skills and competencies that measure whether applicants are truly qualified for jobs. In that process, OPM is also looking to reduce the total number of federal job series by at least 25%.

“I don’t know how we got to that number, but it’s quite a large number. We are in the process right now of updating all of those and hopefully consolidating them down from 600 to a more reasonable number,” Kupor said in an interview with Federal News Network last month. “But the main objective of that reclassification process is to eliminate proxies for skillsets. If we care about skills, then we should stop having proxies for skills, and then redefine the job requirements as skills-based — things that we can ultimately assess through some type of formal assessment.”

In new guidance on the updated technology management job series, OPM said the revisions align with “a fluid, fast-moving IT environment.” That includes rapid developments across cybersecurity, cloud technology, artificial intelligence and other tech fields. The new job standards are also “intentionally structured” to adapt to future technology shifts that, as a result, will impact workforce requirements.

“IT skills now have an increasingly limited shelf-life, often evolving faster than traditional policy and classification cycles. Technologies, tools and work methods shift rapidly, requiring classification standards that can adapt to continuous change,” Kupor wrote in a memo to agencies last week. “To reflect this reality, the updated [position classification standard] modernizes occupational information, clarifies distinctions between IT work categories and incorporates competency-aligned guidance that anticipates and supports evolving operational and strategic IT functions.”

In practical terms, the new 2210 job standards include updated definitions and job titles, as well as clearer distinctions between IT and non-IT work. OPM said the revised standards will shift agencies toward evaluating individuals’ skills and behaviors, rather than working through “outdated” credential assessments. The changes also reflect “modern work” in the IT field and leave space for “continuous” upskilling and reskilling opportunities that are necessary in the rapidly evolving job field, OPM explained.

To help agencies in their transition to skills-based assessments for IT management roles, OPM also released a host of online resources. Agencies now have access to guidance including how to design “competency-based” candidate assessments and classification processes, a resource list for federal hiring managers and more.

“Together, these products provide an integrated approach to aligning classification, qualifications and assessments with job-relevant competencies and proficiency levels,” Kupor wrote in an April 13 memo to agency heads.

Going forward, agencies are in charge of adding any supplemental technical assessments, OPM said, due to varying competency requirements across different agencies and positions within the governmentwide 2210 job series.

Revising federal job qualifications is part of the Trump administration’s broader “merit hiring plan” for the federal workforce. In part, the initiative pushes forward skills-based efforts that were underway during both the Biden administration and the first Trump administration. The bipartisan Chance to Compete Act, enacted in 2024, also emphasized the role of skills-based federal hiring.

Some of the Trump administration’s changes under the merit hiring plan include adding contentious essay questions to federal job applications. But other goals build on longstanding, bipartisan reform efforts that have transcended presidential administrations.

For instance, within the next few years, the Trump administration set a goal of moving 60% of all federal hiring announcements to shared certificates. The shared “lists” let multiple agencies hire from the same pool of qualified job applicants. It’s a strategy that has been shown to ease workloads for federal HR staff.

OPM is also working to fully eliminate “self-assessments” in federal hiring, where job applicants attest to their own skill levels, often leading to biased candidate evaluations.

“In its place, we are requiring hiring managers to use formal assessments — skills-based ‘tests’ to determine one’s aptitude for the specific job skill requirements,” Kupor wrote in his blog post.

Despite the forward momentum, agencies have also historically faced obstacles in strengthening skills-based hiring. Jenny Mattingley, vice president of government affairs at the Partnership for Public Service, said the Trump administration’s goals will require more HR resources and personnel to become fully realized, especially considering the recent loss of thousands of federal HR employees.

“Agencies have been told to do this. But what hasn’t been fixed are the underlying issues of why agencies don’t always use assessments. They don’t have funding to purchase off-the-shelf assessments,” Mattingley said. “There’s a lot of work that goes into doing skills-based hiring — and doing it well. All of these budget and staffing and capacity questions, I think, are going to cause a challenge.”

If you would like to contact this reporter about recent changes in the federal government, please email drew.friedman@federalnewsnetwork.com or reach out on Signal at drewfriedman.11

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