IT trade group CompTIA has today launched a new vendor-neutral certification scheme designed to validate the skills of IT professionals and technicians that install and manage digital home and home office technologies.

Speaking at a launch event at the Learning Technologies conference in London, Matthew Poyiadgi, regional director for CompTIA, said the adoption of digital home and flexible working technologies was being hampered by end users' inability to install and integrate the various systems effectively.

He argued that the new CompTIA Digital Home Technology Integrator Plus (DHTI+) exam would help tackle this problem by providing competent technicians with an accreditation badge that end users will be able to trust.

The DHTI+ course will be taught at various institutes across the UK with the University of Central England providing a centre of excellence at its campus. The exam will cover a range of digital home disciplines, including networking, audio/video, telephony/VoIP, security and surveillance systems, and home control and management.

Poyiadgi said that while the new certificate was branded as a digital home qualification and was likely to be adopted by home technology service providers, it would also prove a valuable qualification for IT professionals tasked with managing remote workers.

"There are two sides to the digital home: the recreational side and the home working side," he explained. "The qualification covers both sides and will be particularly useful for firms that want to know their IT team is capable of setting up secure home working systems. One of the big problems with home working at the moment is that people buy the kit and connect it together at home but aren’t adept enough to ensure it is secure."

The new qualification was welcomed by Toby Treacher, managing director of home technology services firm DT3, which trialed the new DHTI+ course. "When you bring together some of the most complicated standards-driven technology on the planet, as many people now have in their home, there is no way most users are going to understand how to get the most out of it," he said. "We need skilled professionals that users can be confident will deliver this service."