What are Vocational Qualifications?

A vocational qualification means a recognised qualification at any level relating to a particular line of work or specific job role. These qualifications have an emphasis on the assessment of practical skills and knowledge. Examples include BTECs, City& Guilds, NVQ/SVQ, OCR Nationals, Apprenticeships, HNC/HNDs, degrees with a largely vocational content and professional qualifications awarded through a recognized professional body.

VQs are focused on helping you learn skills that will give you a head start in your career, rather than just theory. They can give you a foot in the door to the industry you want to work in, or prepare you for further vocational study. If you are thinking about studying for a vocational qualification to develop your career there's a lot of interesting articles in this recently published supplement from the Guardian newspaper, prepared in collaboration with the educational charity Edge:
Vocational Qualifications: the Next Step

Why Choose us?

Relevant courses, useful skills

City & Guilds qualifications are designed for work. You learn the skills and background knowledge that you need to do a particular job. We check with industry experts regularly to make sure that we are up-to date with the requirements of your chosen sector and update our courses whenever it’s needed.

Learn at work

Because our programmes are designed for work, we plan your programme around your working arrangements. This means that you can carry on and do your job at the same time as learning any new skills and knowledge that will lead to achieving your qualification.

Do it in practice

If you know how to do something, that’s great. If you can prove it by actually doing it, that’s even better. Fortunately, that’s what our courses let you do. Most of them focus on building up practical skills building your confidence at the same time.

Respect and recognition

We use City & Guilds because employers respect the name. When they see City & Guilds on your CV, they know it stands for high-quality training. Lots of people have said that their City & Guilds qualification was the reason they were offered their job.

How we work

We help potential candidates make the right choice of qualification by carrying out an initial assessment followed up by an interview and an informal skills scan. This process helps us to decide which route you should take: further training and/or development of new skills; or the assessment only route as an 'experienced' worker. Some qualifications already have a planned programme of learning.

We have a wide range of learning materials and resources that we use to plan a blended learning approach using a combination of Information Communication Technology and self-directed learning. We offer both one-to-one support and small group tuition backed up with first class reading material. We listen to employers and constantly broaden our range of qualifications to meet demand.

All the help and support you need

We’ve been doing this for over five years and we’ve learned a few things in that time. One of them is that the more help and support you give people on a course, the more likely they are to learn and pass. That’s why we select Trainers and Assessors who care about their learners and get a buzz when they achieve!

Just out of interest!

For the past five years, City & Guilds has been tracking the fame and fortune of the UK’s vocational millionaires.

Unlike the Sunday Times Rich List, the list focuses on entrepreneurs and people who are largely self-made millionaires, all of whom have used their vocational education or training to help them achieve success.

City & Guilds is working to change the perception of work-related education as the ‘poor alternative’ to the traditional academic route. As the list proves, it’s possible for people who choose the vocational path to amass personal wealth and, what’s more, to become industry leaders.

In June 2005 City&Guilds released a press statement telling us that:

“Some of the UK’s most affluent millionaires are growing richer despite turning their backs on academia in favour of craft skills to earn their fortunes.

“According to the third City & Guilds Vocational Rich List, which ranks wealth by those who built their fortunes on a vocational qualification or apprenticeship, business is booming. The collective wealth of the nation’s top 25 craft m illionaires has experienced a hike of nearly £2.4 billion over the past two years - from £2.7 billion in 2003 to £5.1 billion in 2005.

Chris Humphries, director general, City & Guilds said: “We’re delighted to see that the number of the craft millionaires on this year’s Vocational Rich List has grown significantly and has a billionaire in its midst.” With all these entrepreneurs, vocational training has been their foundation for extraordinary financial and commercial success. Far from feeling hindered by a lack of academic qualifications, they have worked hard to gain practical skills at a young age, which they have used to their advantage. These millionaires are a real inspiration to school leavers, especially those who choose not to go down the university route.”

Vocational Qualifications are a real alternative to academic courses, giving real people like you the skills they need to do real jobs.

These are some of the things that our learners like about us:

These are actual comments from learners in our recent OFSTED inspection:

• 'It's like a puzzle that fits now'
• Good guidance from helpful and supportive staff
• Opportunity to learn at work and do the job better
• Gaining the confidence to learn new things
• Well presented information that is easy to access
• Flexible learning that is fitted round their lifestyle
• Not being made to feel stupid
• Good contact after illness
• 'Fantastic individual support that makes me want to learn'

These are some of the things that we are planning to do to improve our learners experience even more:

• Provide more early information about what they need to do
• Set clearer end dates and reduce the wait time to start assessment
• Make more time to sit down and talk about things and encourage the culture of a 'drop in' centre
• Provide more training in the centre