Yes, because it's not real engineering. The field is too variable and fast paced to be like civil engineering etc. Those have well defined codes because it is physics constrained. Each construction must be done separately at high cost. Software doesn't work like this. So there is much more flexibility and change and there's no stable best practice to regulate.

Information theory is its own sort of physics but that’s not the part that needs to be regulated. Psychologists are also licensed. That we still aren’t is a mystery to me at this point. Our stuff is now critical infrastructure. Not everyone works on that sort of things but enough of us do that at least part of the trade should be licensed.