This article focuses on theoretical and practical issues of using SWOT analysis as a means of critical thinking skills development of IT students at the professional English language lessons. The authors emphasize the importance of close-knit teaching of critical thinking skills and SWOT analysis that form the core of an English lesson for future IT specialists. Currently, the problem of developing critical thinking of students and schoolchildren is relevant, since developing thinking means enhancing the ability to think. The use of SWOT analysis gives an opportunity to build learners’ skills and abilities to process and sort out necessary information, find strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and threats that arise in the workplace. Thanks to a person's competence to think “outside the box”, new ways of solving problems will be revealed, difficult tasks will be solved, discoveries will be made, inventions will appear. The research is based on the works by wellknown home and foreign methodologists studying the issues of critical thinking.