Work-related qualifications

Include:

• broad job-related sector courses such as art and design, engineering or hospitality and catering
• narrower job-related sector courses such as automotive engineering, fashion and clothing or food and beverage service

Work-related qualifications are on offer as three different sizes of qualifications at all levels:

• An award is the smallest and takes between 10 and 120 hours to complete
• A certificate takes between 130 and 360 hours to complete
• A diploma takes at least 370 hours to complete

The title of every work-related/vocational qualification contains the following information:

• awarding body - for example EDEXCEL, OCR or City and Guilds
• level of the qualification - Entry level to level 8
• size of the qualification -  award, certificate or diploma
• what the qualification is about - the work-related subject

Existing work-related qualifications such as National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs) and BTECs have also recently been re-titled to help employers and students understand the level of difficulty and size of the qualification. 

For example work-related qualifications include:

• OCR Entry Level Award in Employability Skills (Entry 3)
• EDEXCEL Level 1 BTEC Award in Construction and the Built Environment
• City & Guilds Level 2 Certificate in Basic Plumbing Studies 
• OCR Level 3 NVQ Diploma in Business and Administration

At 14+ you may be able to take a work-related qualfication alongside your GCSEs

 

Find out more about work-related qualifications:

Talk to your:

• Personal tutor or careers co-ordinator at school
• Personal Adviser from Connexions Worcestershire

Go online:

• You can find out more information about all the 14+  work-related qualifications on the direct gov website.

• Find our more about jobs by using the Next Steps job profiles