Who are these "back street 'computer repair' guys", and "dodgy chancers", and where are you seeing them? If there were some sort of magic certification regime

Who are these "back street 'computer repair' guys", and "dodgy chancers", and where are you seeing them? If there were some sort of magic certification regime that would guarantee, a programmer knew what he was doing, you can be certain such a certificate would already exist. You also seem to have just ignored all the problems that exist with mandatory doctors and lawyers guilds. For example the AMA hasn't allowed any new Medical schools to open in the US since the early 80s. There is a reason doctors and lawyers are so expensive, it's because their guilds have an incentive to keep them artificially scarce. Right now IT is one of the few professional fields where you can essential apprentice your way to a job. I can guarantee that were we to establish a mandatory governing body, a degree would be required. Hell, in Florida they require Interior Decorators to have an approved degree (very narrow definition of approved degree too, I might add). In Georgia (where I live), the board who overseas General Contractors, ruled they have $1,000,000 in assets in addition to the insurance they were already required to have to cover damages. The only reason it was passed was to protect the jobs of established contractors, who were being forced to compete with lower wage Mexican labor. That kind of thing will happen to the IT industry if you regulate it similarly.