Shuichiro Ogawa
日本語

Notes · updated 2026-09-15

How do you measure a business analyst's skills?

Japan's Digital Skill Standard added Business Analyst as a role in ver.2.0 (April 2026), so the job title now has a public definition. It has no ruler.

Contents (12)
  1. The Digital Skill Standard inside the Digital Skill Standard
  2. Business Analyst is new in ver.2.0
  3. The standard does not measure proficiency
  4. The measuring machinery sits outside the standard
  5. What the BABOK Guide standardises
  6. Professional bodies measure in hours and exams
  7. What the certification exams measure
  8. The hiring market screens on kinds of experience
  9. In practice, companies measure with their own machinery
  10. What is measured, and what is not
  11. Unverified
  12. Footnotes

Work gets described in job titles all the time: on a CV, in a portfolio, in a proposal. Write “business analyst” there and the reader may have nothing public to check it against.

Japan has a public skill standard for digital talent. The Digital Skill Standard (DSS) added Business Analyst as a role in ver.2.0, published in April 20261. That makes the title look publicly grounded.

Open the standard and you find a list of roles and skills. What you do not find is any machinery for measuring how good someone is at them.

The Digital Skill Standard inside the Digital Skill Standard

The Digital Skill Standard has two halves. The DX Literacy Standard (DSS-L) is for every business person, and the DX Promotion Skill Standard (DSS-P) is for people who drive DX2. METI’s Information Technology Utilisation Promotion Division and IPA wrote it, and published it on 21 December 2022.

The structure is personnel types, roles, a common skill list, and example learning items. Nothing in it says how a piece of work proceeds.

Version 2.0 was published on 16 April 2026 with six personnel types and seventeen roles1. Version 1.2, from July 2024, had five types, fifteen roles and 49 skill items, so three years added two roles and eighteen skill items3. Most of the growth sits in AI and data. A Data Management type was added, along with skills for AI implementation and operation and AI governance4.

The common skill list is organised into five categories and thirteen subcategories4. The categories are business transformation, data preparation and use, technology, security, and personal skills. Each skill item carries a description and example learning items, deliberately kept light so they can keep up with the technology4.

Business Analyst is new in ver.2.0

Business Analyst belongs to the Business Architect type, alongside Business Architect and Product Manager. Through ver.1.2 that type held three roles built around new business development, upgrading existing business, and improving internal operations, so ver.2.0 changed how the roles are cut3.

The responsibility statement reads4:

Analyse the business, organisation and systems in a product or programme, organise requirements, and communicate them to the engineers who implement them. Also serve as the communication hub for the people involved and mediate their interests.

Four main work items follow: analysing problems and organising solutions; collecting, analysing, clarifying, tracking and change-managing requirements; supporting verification and acceptance and rolling out to users; and building cooperation and consensus among stakeholders4.

The core skill group is Product Management, which the role-definition material marks as the main domain of both Product Manager and Business Analyst5. It has seven items: requirements analysis and management, product vision and roadmap, product outcome metrics, scope and prioritisation, hypothesis testing and learning cycles, marketing, and product judgement informed by technical constraints and architecture4. Requirements analysis and management is defined as organising the concrete things a product or programme must achieve and driving them to implementation while managing change4.

The role’s character is spelled out too. It holds no final decision rights, works mainly through supporting decisions and owning execution, and is described as the most flexibly deployable of the transformation support staff4. It cannot drive transformation alone; a responsible owner and a decision maker are prerequisites, the role-definition material says5.

The standard does not measure proficiency

This is the point. DSS-P states in a footnote that it sets no detailed level indicators4:

As a whole, the DX Promotion Skill Standard sets no detailed level indicators, and assumes as the development target the level at which a person can carry out work independently and develop junior staff (equivalent to ITSS+ Level 4).

One target level, and no attainment stages per skill. The FAQ says the same thing. Where the ITSS family defines levels 1 through 7, DSS-P says it “does not provide its own detailed level indicators”6, and that it “does not set a unified list of attainment criteria” usable across industries and job types6.

What it puts in the place of levels is importance. For each role, every skill item is marked a, b, c, d, or z for personal skills4. a means high practical capability and expertise is required, b means a certain level, c means understanding sufficient to explain the knowledge, d means understanding the item’s position within the whole and its relations to other items, and z means practical capability suited to the role and situation4.

This is not a proficiency scale. It does not say where a person stands; it says how heavily a role weighs a skill. The same skill item carries different importance under a different role.

One notation is easy to misread. Reference material in the common skill list shows levels from one to four stars, but those come from the Data Scientist Society’s skill check list, not from DSS-P4.

The measuring machinery sits outside the standard

If the standard does not measure, who does? Look at the public tools and the reachable range is narrow.

IT Skill Standard (ITSS) has seven levels, and the method of judging them changes with the level. Levels 1 to 3 are judged basically by passing an Information Technology Engineers Examination, and level 4 by passing an exam plus business experience. Levels 5 to 7 rest on experience and interviews7. Exams reach level 4; above that, other people’s assessments and a track record take over.

ITSS itself warns about how it gets used. The overview notes cases where it was introduced straight into personnel evaluation, or where skill diagnosis became the end of the exercise rather than the start7.

No public tool currently diagnoses an individual’s skills. The i Competency Dictionary, with its task and skill dictionaries, ended in fiscal 2022, and its diagnosis system stopped accepting new applications in April 20208. ITSS+, its successor in spirit, states in a footnote that it is not intended for personnel evaluation or procurement9.

The Information Technology Engineers Examination is still running, with thirteen categories10. Its stated purpose is to provide an objective measure of evaluation useful in recruitment10, and candidates in every category can check their individual results11.

No category names a business analyst. Even IPA’s table of useful examinations per role, built for ver.1.2, only assigns the three Business Architect-type roles a “particularly useful” mark for IT Strategist and Embedded Systems Specialist, and “useful” for Systems Architect, Project Manager, and Applied Information Technology Engineer12.

Organisational and individual measures are easily confused. METI’s DX Promotion Index self-assesses maturity on a six-point scale from level 0 to 5, but the unit is the company, not the person13.

What the BABOK Guide standardises

The reference standard among professional bodies is IIBA’s BABOK Guide. IIBA is a Canadian professional association that also sells certifications and publications14. Its self-descriptions are worth discounting accordingly.

The current edition is v3, published in 201515. Version 1.4 came in 2005, v1.6 in 2006 and v2 in 2009, so editions have turned over roughly every six years. No announcement of a v4 could be found16.

The structure is six knowledge areas and thirty tasks. IIBA states the number thirty in its own text14. The tasks run numbered through chapters 3 to 8, and the count per knowledge area is 5, 5, 5, 4, 6, 517.

The knowledge areas are14:

  • Business Analysis Planning and Monitoring
  • Elicitation and Collaboration
  • Requirements Life Cycle Management
  • Strategy Analysis
  • Requirements Analysis and Design Definition
  • Solution Evaluation

The authoritative Japanese translations could not be checked, since the Japanese editions sit behind member login18.

Chapter 9 holds the Underlying Competencies: 29 of them in six categories17.

  • Analytical Thinking and Problem Solving (7)
  • Behavioural Characteristics (5)
  • Business Knowledge (5)
  • Communication Skills (4)
  • Interaction Skills (5)
  • Tools and Technology (3)

Chapter 10 lists the techniques. IIBA defines them as “methods that business analysis professionals use to perform business analysis tasks”16. The numbering runs at least to 10.50, Workshops17. The count is often given as fifty, but that total is not confirmed on IIBA’s own pages14. The free Standard instead counts “more than 90 business analysis techniques in total” across the BABOK Guide, the Agile Extension, the Business Data Analytics guide and the Product Ownership guide.

Underneath sits the BACCM, the Business Analysis Core Concept Model14. It names Change, Need, Solution, Stakeholder, Value and Context, each with a definition. IIBA calls it a thinking model and an organising model14.

Five perspectives cover the main application areas16: Agile, Business Intelligence, Information Technology, Business Architecture, and Business Process Management.

Since 2022 a free Business Analysis Standard also exists alongside the guide14. It is now at v2.0 (2025), deliberately excludes the content of the knowledge areas, and is described as setting the direction for the BABOK Guide’s future. The six knowledge areas and thirty task descriptions have not changed, the Standard states.

So does BABOK measure people? IIBA draws the line itself: “The BABOK Guide describes 29 underlying competencies that support business analysis tasks. The Business Analysis Competency Model describes how competencies can be applied when executing those tasks.”14 Individual proficiency belongs to the latter, which carries a five-point self-assessment scale from General Awareness through Practical Knowledge and Skilled to Expert and Strategist19. Since the guide itself is paid, the absence of a proficiency scale inside it is only indirectly confirmed14.

Exams use the body of knowledge as their source. The ECBA runs 75 minutes and 50 questions across nine domains: the first three come from the Standard, and the next six from practical application of the BABOK Guide and the BACCM17.

Professional bodies measure in hours and exams

Outside government there are standards for the BA profession. IPA’s role-definition material names BABOK, PMI’s BA guide, and ISO/IEC/IEEE 29148 as the reference bodies of knowledge5.

Certification requirements measure capability almost entirely in hours. CBAP asks for 7,500 hours of work in the last ten years, at least 900 hours in four of the six knowledge areas and 3,600 hours across them, 35 hours of education in the last four years, and two references20. CCBA asks for 3,750 hours in the last seven years and 21 hours of education21. Applicants log their own hours; documentation is only requested if an application is selected for audit20.

IIBA also defines a unit of capability apart from the body of knowledge. The Business Analysis Competency Model holds thirty performance competencies with behavioural indicators, described on the public page as four levels22. The v4 preview edition instead shows the thirty competencies on a five-point scale from General Awareness to Strategist, and says v4 cut the assessment points from more than 300 to 3019. It maps the model onto IIBA’s certification framework, where ECBA sits at level 1, CCBA at 2 and CBAP at 31923. The public page’s “four levels” may be counting the steps of that framework22. Either way the model is members-only, and organisations need a licence19.

International standards do not define the profession. ISO/IEC/IEEE 29148 specifies requirements processes and the characteristics of requirements, and says nothing about personnel competency (the corresponding JIS is X 0166:2021)24. Certifying and assessing people is a separate family: ISO/IEC 17024 covers bodies that certify persons, and ISO 10667-1 covers the validity and reliability of assessment25. IIBA writes that its credentialing policies and practices are “guided by” ISO/IEC 1702420. That is a statement of alignment, not a claim to third-party accreditation20.

Frameworks that do define levels get used as reference points. SFIA in the UK has seven responsibility levels and defines the BA skill, Business Situation Analysis, at levels 2 to 626. The European e-CF arranges 41 competences across five proficiency levels27.

In Japan, the IIBA Japan chapter publishes the Japanese edition of the BABOK Guide18. Requirements engineering has REBOK, and modelling skill has the UMTP certification exam2829. Both measure knowledge and experience, not outcomes.

What the certification exams measure

The entry requirements differ by level. ECBA has none: no work hours, no education hours, no references, and the exam can be bought directly30. CCBA asks for 3,750 hours in the last seven years (at least 900 hours in each of two knowledge areas, or 500 in each of four), 21 hours of education, and two references21. CBAP asks for 7,500 hours in the last ten years (at least 900 in each of four areas, 3,600 across them), 35 hours of education, and two references20. Only ECBA lets knowledge alone through the gate; the two above it require accumulated hours.

The exam weightings, by contrast, are published. CBAP gives 30% to requirements analysis and design definition, 14% to business analysis planning and monitoring, 15% to requirements lifecycle management, 15% to strategy analysis, 14% to solution evaluation and 12% to elicitation and collaboration20. CCBA gives requirements analysis and design definition 32% and solution evaluation 6%21. CCBA carries 130 questions in 180 minutes, CBAP 120 in 210, and ECBA 50 in 75, all multiple choice built on scenarios212017.

The ECBA exam was rebuilt in 2025, and its source moved to the standard. Of its nine domains, three come from The Business Analysis Standard, namely understanding business analysis at 20%, mindset for effective BA at 14% and implementing BA at 6%, while six come from BABOK’s BACCM17. The old blueprint split BABOK’s knowledge areas into five domains, so the axis of measurement has moved from the body of knowledge to the standard17.

The passing score, unlike the weighting, is not published. IIBA does not disclose scores or percentages, and reports performance indicators instead30. A candidate prepares against a published weighting without knowing where the line sits.

The application itself is self-reported. Documentation is requested only if the application is selected for audit31, and a work log locks seven days after an activity is entered, so hours cannot be added later31. IIBA reserves the right to revoke a certification at its discretion32.

Recertification accumulates hours again: 60 CDUs every three years. One hour of planned activity earns one CDU, except in work history, where 200 hours earn one CDU up to a cap of 2533. Self-directed learning is capped at 15, and up to 20 surplus units carry into the next three-year cycle33. ECBA does not expire and needs no renewal33.

So what the certification accumulates is exam points and activity hours. What a candidate built and changed is not asked for even under audit31.

The hiring market screens on kinds of experience

If standards and exams do not measure, what do employers look at? Levtech’s IT Human Resources White Paper 2025 asked 1,000 hiring managers which experience and skills they weigh most34. The top answers were client negotiation experience at 30.6%, project management experience at 23.8%, and programming skill level at 20.2%. Qualifications and exams are not among the options. The BA-adjacent requirements appear as kinds of experience.

The same survey found the biggest obstacle to hiring people without industry experience is that skills and ability are hard to judge, at 55.3%34. The absence of a measuring tool is recognised on the hiring side too.

The occupation is also thin in the statistics. The white paper’s survey of 3,000 practitioners has no “business analyst” category in its job breakdown34. Neither does the job classification in MHLW’s Basic Survey on Wage Structure35. In public statistics, the business analyst is not measured as an occupation at all.

On the demand side, the stage above the BA is the driest. IPA’s DX Trends 2025 reports that 85.1% of Japanese companies are short of people to drive DX, against 23.8% in the US and 44.6% in Germany36. The shortage of people who can plan AI-enabled products and services is 61.0% in Japan36. METI’s supply-and-demand study projects a shortfall of up to 787,000 IT workers by 2030, though that figure rests on secondary sources37.

Money has no BA ruler either. The wage survey reports pay by rank and by occupation, and holds no category matching the BA35. Its monthly scheduled earnings run 529,200 yen for section managers and 310,500 yen for non-managerial staff, across all occupations35.

Only the certifying body counts BAs by name. IIBA Japan reports 462 CBAPs and 263 ECBAs in Japan as of September 202623. The Information Technology Engineers Examination saw 8,511 people sit the Project Manager exam in a single sitting38. Two orders of magnitude apart.

The measuring ground itself is unsettled. One survey found 84.1% of non-IT companies have no standard for assessing internal IT talent39. IPA itself writes that companies without a talent profile or assessment standard show more pronounced shortages40. Where no standard exists, years of experience and the impression left at interview become the whole of selection.

In practice, companies measure with their own machinery

IPA publishes twenty case studies of DSS use. The assessments in them are all built in-house. They assess against DSS-P, select people by assessment, measure training effects, and visualise skills41.

The standard supplies shared vocabulary; organisations and individuals design the measurement. The FAQ recommending that companies formulate their own evaluation indicators is a statement of that division of labour6. IPA not providing an effect-measurement format is the same policy from the other side.

What is measured, and what is not

Public tools measure knowledge and basic ability in exams, and years and the outline of a record in experience judging. DSS-P shows how heavily each role weighs each skill; it does not evaluate people.

Professional bodies centre on hours and exams. CBAP’s 7,500 hours accumulate time served, not results; what you built and what you changed appears nowhere in the requirements.

The hiring market makes kinds of experience the unit of selection. A 30.6% for client negotiation experience expresses presence or absence, not level. The reason “hard to judge” tops the list for inexperienced hires is that nothing measures the next step up, and the absence of a BA category in public statistics is the same fact seen from another side.

The trouble with this structure is known in measurement research. Self-reports and objective measures diverge repeatedly, which is summarised in the competency-measurement note (Competency Measurement Premised on AI Use — The Aptitude x AI Skill Interaction and Measurement Frameworks).

So measurement outside the standard has to be built by the person. Put “business analyst” on a CV or in a portfolio and the supporting account is yours to write. Take requirements analysis and management: record which requirements, through which negotiations, became what, case by case. If employers can only see kinds of experience and find that limiting, that is where the difference in how you write outcomes shows up. The standard gives vocabulary, not evidence.

Unverified

  • The abbreviation “DSS-P” is not confirmed on IPA’s published pages (IPA writes “DX Promotion Skill Standard”) [to verify]
  • The count of 67 skill items comes from tallying tables in the split volume; no official statement of “67” was found [needs primary verification]
  • The ver.1.0 numbering and the existence of ver.1.1 are unconfirmed in primary sources [needs primary verification]
  • The BA responsibility statement differs in wording between the split volume and the role-definition material, from the same publisher on the same day [to verify]
  • meti.go.jp returns 403 for every page, so METI primary pages are unverified; the DX Promotion Index and revision history rest on IPA’s mirror [to verify]
  • The common skill list spreadsheet, the authoritative source for per-role importance, is unread (xlsx) [needs primary verification]
  • No ver.2.0 table of useful examinations per role was found; the confirmed table is the ver.1.2 one [to verify]
  • The authoritative Japanese translations of the knowledge area names are unconfirmed; the Japanese editions sit behind member login [needs primary verification]
  • The technique total of fifty is not confirmed on IIBA’s pages; the highest number confirmed is 10.50, and the Standard counts more than ninety across products [needs primary verification]
  • The absence of a proficiency scale inside the BABOK Guide is only indirectly confirmed, since the guide is paid [needs primary verification]
  • The absence of a v4 rests on the absence of any announcement [needs primary verification]
  • The level count of the Business Analysis Competency Model differs between the public page (four) and the v4 preview (five); reading the four as the steps of the certification framework is an inference, and no primary source says what the fourth step would be [to verify]
  • IIBA says its credentialing is “guided by” ISO/IEC 17024, but third-party accreditation could not be confirmed (no certifying body’s register was reachable) [to verify]
  • The member and non-member mapping in the published fees was garbled during extraction (for example exam $405 against Members $250 / Non-Members $350), and the fee page carries no effective or revision date [needs primary verification]
  • Candidate and pass-rate statistics are not available from IIBA primary pages [needs primary verification]
  • The worldwide count of certified holders is unavailable from IIBA primary pages; the secondary figure of about 36,000 is not used [needs primary verification]
  • CCBA’s education requirement appears only in the Japan chapter’s legacy wording, not in the requirements section of the current CCBA Handbook (May 2026) [to verify]
  • Kryterion’s scope of involvement is unclear: blueprint development for the new ECBA exam, or the whole exam operation [to verify]
  • No start date has been announced for translations of the rebuilt ECBA exam, Japanese included [to verify]
  • The publication date of the new edition of The Business Analysis Standard rests on secondary reporting (2026-05-11) [needs primary verification]
  • The publication date of the Japanese BABOK v3 edition is not stated on IIBA Japan’s page [needs primary verification]
  • “Japan Business Analysis Association (JBAA)” could not be confirmed as an organisation [to verify]
  • Measurement-validity studies on self-report versus objective measures were unreachable at publisher pages [needs primary verification]
  • The 2018 survey cited in the role-definition material (46% of BAs sit in IT departments) does not name its author in the document [needs primary verification]
  • METI’s IT workforce supply-and-demand study is unreachable (403); the 787,000 figure rests on agreement among secondary sources [needs primary verification]
  • The occupational wage for “systems consultants and designers” is published only as an Excel file on e-Stat and was not retrieved [needs primary verification]
  • The 84.1% figure for companies without an assessment standard (fiscal 2022 survey) comes from secondary reporting, not IPA directly [needs primary verification]
  • The Persol Career survey’s primary release returns 403 [needs primary verification]
  • IPA DX Trends 2025’s per-occupation shortage (business architects most short) appears only in secondary reporting; the PDF pages checked do not carry it [needs primary verification]

References

Footnotes

  1. ipa.go.jp/pressrelease/2026/press20260416.html (2026-04-16) ↩ ↩2

  2. ipa.go.jp/jinzai/skill-standard/dss/about.html ↩

  3. ipa.go.jp/jinzai/skill-standard/dss/sbn8o100000049jl-att/000106871.pdf (2024-07-08) ↩ ↩2

  4. ipa.go.jp/jinzai/skill-standard/dss/rcu1hd000000j76k-att/sep_dss-p.pdf (2026-04) ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9 ↩10 ↩11 ↩12

  5. ipa.go.jp/jinzai/skill-gakushu/omgdg50000001iys-att/architecture-results.pdf (2026-04-16) ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  6. ipa.go.jp/jinzai/skill-standard/dss/omgdg5000000bpmb-att/dssfaq.pdf ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  7. ipa.go.jp/archive/jinzai/skill-standard/itss/qv6pgp000000btkg-att/000010169.pdf (2008-03-31) ↩ ↩2

  8. ipa.go.jp/archive/jinzai/skill-standard/icd/about.html (programme ended in fiscal 2022) ↩

  9. ipa.go.jp/jinzai/skill-standard/plus-it-ui/itssplus/about.html ↩

  10. ipa.go.jp/shiken/about/gaiyou.html ↩ ↩2

  11. ipa.go.jp/shiken/about/merit/merit04.html (updated 2026-07-08) ↩

  12. ipa.go.jp/jinzai/skill-standard/dss/rcu1hd000000j76k-att/examinations_to_roles.pdf (DSS ver.1.2, 2024-03-29) ↩

  13. ipa.go.jp/digital/dx-suishin/rcu1hd000001a4xh-att/dx-suishin-guidance.pdf (2026-08) ↩

  14. iiba.org/globalassets/business-analysis-resources/the-business-analysis-standard/files/the-business-analysis-standard.pdf (free PDF, ©2025; preface, §2.1–2.3, §3.4, §5.3) ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9

  15. iiba.org/professional-development/knowledge-centre/ba-connection/babok-guide-v3-celebrates-1-year-anniversary (2016-04-15) ↩

  16. iiba.org/standards-and-resources/babok/ ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  17. iiba.org/globalassets/certification/ecba/files/ecba-exam-blueprint.pdf (Blueprint V1.1, updated 2025-06) and …/ecba-reference-map.pdf ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7

  18. japan.iiba.org/Stories/page/japanese-contents ↩ ↩2

  19. integration.iiba.org/globalassets/professional-development/develop-your-skills/competency-model/files/business-analysis-competency-model-v4-preview-edition.pdf (§1.5, Table 2.0.1) ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  20. iiba.org/globalassets/certification/cbap/files/cbap-handbook.pdf (May 2026) ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7

  21. iiba.org/globalassets/certification/ccba/files/ccba-handbook.pdf (May 2026) ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  22. iiba.org/professional-development/business-analysis-competency-model/ ↩ ↩2

  23. japan.iiba.org/Stories/page/cert_info (as of September 2026, counted by home address registered as Japan) ↩ ↩2

  24. ISO/IEC/IEEE 29148:2018; corresponding JIS X 0166:2021 (webdesk.jsa.or.jp) ↩

  25. ISO/IEC 17024:2026 (evs.ee); ISO 10667-1:2020 (austrian-standards.at) ↩

  26. sfia-online.org/en/sfia-9 (2024-10) ↩

  27. itprofessionalism.org/professionalism/e-competence-framework/ (EN 16234-1:2019) ↩

  28. Kinokuniya listing for Requirements Engineering Body of Knowledge (Kindai Kagaku Sha, 2011-06) ↩

  29. umtp-japan.org/faq ↩

  30. iiba.org/business-analysis-certifications/certification-faq/ ↩ ↩2

  31. iiba.org/globalassets/certification/ccba/files/ccba-step-by-step-application-process-guide.pdf (May 2026) ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  32. iiba.org/globalassets/certification/ecba/files/ecba-handbook.pdf (May 2026) ↩

  33. iiba.org/globalassets/certification/recertification/files/ccba-recertification-handbook.pdf (August 2024) and iiba.org/business-analysis-certifications/recertification/ ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  34. levtech.jp/files/doc/levtech_research_2025.pdf (1,000 hiring managers, surveyed 2024-11-22 to 29 online), pp. 11, 12, 17, 26 ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  35. mhlw.go.jp/toukei/itiran/roudou/chingin/kouzou/z2025/gaiyo.html and table 8 (June 2025 wages, both sexes) ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  36. ipa.go.jp/digital/chousa/discussion-paper/j5u9nn000000abx5-att/dx2025_digital_talent_ai_era.pdf (fiscal 2024 survey; Japan n=1,191, US n=391, Germany n=366), pp. 2–3 ↩ ↩2

  37. meti.go.jp/policy/it_policy/jinzai/gaiyou.pdf (2019-03 report, commissioned to Mizuho Information & Research Institute); primary site returns 403 so figures rest on secondary sources [needs primary verification] ↩

  38. ipa.go.jp/news/2025/shiken_20251225.html (published 2025-12-25; 8,511 sat the Project Manager exam) ↩

  39. Secondary reporting of IPA’s fiscal 2022 survey; the primary source was unreachable [needs primary verification]. enterprisezine.jp/news/detail/17670, japan.zdnet.com/article/35203030/ ↩

  40. ipa.go.jp/digital/chousa/discussion-paper/dx-talent-shortage.html ↩

  41. ipa.go.jp/jinzai/skill-standard/dss/case.html (updated 2026-01-08) ↩

Author: Shuichiro Ogawa (Design Researcher / Consultant) About me →