Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to Will on Safety. Today's topic I thought we'd discuss health and safety qualifications. Um, I've been getting a lot of questions, and there's a lot of questions on health safety forums around what are the best qualifications you need to achieve to get that introduction or introductory safety role. It really depends on [Music] a couple of things. It really depends on if you've got any health and safety experience and background. Uh, if you've got, you know, any sort of work experience within health and safety as well, it'll be very company dependent. In my case, for example, I did a number of IOSH courses: Irish Managing Safely, IOSH Accident Investigation and Reporting, uh, IOSH Risk Assessors Course. I had a lot of experience of health and safety and managing health and safety within a department from my time served in the Royal Navy, and I also got myself some work experience with a house builder and a consultancy. But back to the qualifications and the sort of um entry-level qualifications, then we'll talk about

some other qualifications you can achieve in health and safety. So, to get that sort of introductory role in safety, most companies would expect you to have something like a NEBOSH General Certificate or NEBOSH International General Certificate, depending on if you're UK-based or you're in a different country. But that really would be the minimum sort of standard of training that most companies—not all companies, but most companies—would ask their health and safety professionals to hold. Just having that NEBOSH General or NEBOSH International General Certificate may well not be enough to get you that role, and also it's going to be very company and industry dependent. So, an example of that is maybe you're working within the construction industry. Well, the company you want to work for might not ask for a NEBOSH General Certificate; they may well ask for a NEBOSH Construction Certificate, which is very much more specific and geared towards the construction industry. But sort of entry-level qualifications, you're looking at

uh level four qualifications, nebosh, uh general certificate, nebosh international general certificate, knee bosch construction certificate, and they would all be sort of entry-level qualifications. So in most instances, that's what you're going to be asked um to have achieved prior uh to gaining a job within uh the industry at an introductory level. So at the very sort of lower rung of the ladder, following on from your general certificate, international general, or construction certificate, you know, there is scope to widen your health and safety knowledge, and that can be done in a number of ways as well. So there are specific um courses where you can branch off and do other qualifications in specific things, things like fire safety, for example, um, or if you wanted a higher level qualification. So when you start looking at sort of level six qualifications, which really are um the required levels for safety management positions uh and above really, then you'd be looking at two main ways. So you've got the nebosh diploma or nebosh international diploma in occupational health and safety.

or another way and another route to go down is now available via something called ncrq, which is also a level 6 qualification. The ncrq is more work-based workplace learning and it's scenario-based, whereas the nebosh, um, the sort of nebosh route is very much more academic-based, you know, understanding exactly what's in the workbooks and being able to answer examination questions on the contents of what you've studied. For me, and to suit my style of learning, I went down the ncrq route, um, because, you know, the way I learn is I need to take a real uh scenario and be able to sort of understand how that scenario would play out in my mind. But if you are more academically focused, uh, the nebosh route is a great, great route. Um, I would say is catching up to how um, how accepted it is now, but nebosh is definitely the sort of primary um qualification that a lot of, especially big companies, will be asking for. There are other opportunities to go uh

to a higher level still. You can do, for example, degrees in occupational health and safety as well, and it's the same for environmental. So, you know, if you're after an EHS job, for example, so maybe it's not just a safety-focused job but an environmental health and safety job, they may well ask, as well as your sort of general certificate at the entry-level job level, they may well ask for something like a NEBOSH environmental certificate or NEBOSH international environmental certificate. Um, and then again, you can build on those qualifications um in the same way. So, you can go on and do a NEBOSH environmental diploma. But I hope that has helped, and I hope that sort of clarified some of the different routes to a career in health and safety. If you do have any questions, then uh, please just drop me a comment uh below. I always try and answer the comments um. If you've enjoyed this video, please check out my other videos. I've got tons of other videos there, including hints and tips on how to get your first job in

health and safety. It touches on some of the qualifications but touches on my route of how I acquired my first health and safety job. Um, but please, if you are enjoying the channel, if you are enjoying the videos and you haven't already hit that subscribe button, it's free, it doesn't cost you anything. Give me a like and hit the notification bell. I try and post two videos a week. Um, so by hitting that notification bell, it'll just let you know when I've uploaded some new content for you to enjoy. But until next time, folks, remember safe by choice, not by chance. Take care, everybody. Have a great day. Bye for now.

Career in Health and Safety - What Qualifications Do I Need?

Career in Health and Safety - What Qualifications Do I Need?

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