Vocational qualifications offer a practical, hands-on approach to learning focusing on a specific career or employment sector. They usually involve a work placement which means that you end up with real-life work experience as well as the practical skills needed for your chosen career.

This makes vocational qualifications very popular with lots of employers because they want a workforce that is able to demonstrate practical skills as well as theoretical knowledge.

Because everyone is different with different career goals and different styles of learning, it makes sense that there should be different types of qualifications and different ways to gain them. Vocational qualifications are just as valuable as traditional academic qualifications and they really aren’t as separate from one another as you may think.

Everyone will be involved in vocational learning at some point in their lives. It could be an Honours degree student studying a vocational subject or having on-the-job training after they graduate, or it could be a learner who decides to follow a vocational route right from the start by doing an Apprenticeship, a BTEC National Diploma or a Foundation degree.

This section of the website will help you make sense of vocational qualifications in the workplace and in higher and further education and show you how you can follow your own vocational pathway to your chosen career.

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