Measurements of the core ion temperature profile are required in ITER with ±10% accuracy and 100 ms time resolution. The ITER radial neutron camera (RNC), with 45 collimated lines of sight (spanning almost completely a poloidal plasma section) equipped with compact neutron spectrometers, has the potential to provide such spatially resolved temperature information. In this paper a novel technique for the ion temperature profile measurement based on the combination of unfolding and spatial inversion of RNC measurements is presented and applied to the ITER full power standard H-mode deuterium–tritium scenario, assuming the RNC to be equipped with liquid scintillators. Results based on synthetic data suggest that the target accuracy could be reached with a time resolution ⩾200 ms.