Education, careers and qualifications – Economy, enterprise and skills

Where to start

If you know what career you want to do, you’re off to a great start. You can find out what education and career paths are available to you for your chosen career through the National Careers Service – Explore careers page

The National Careers Service is also a great starting point if you are unsure of what career interests you, you can discover skills and careers, complete a skills health check, and take the UCAS careers quiz

The government have a website dedicated to Skills for life and the options available

To find out about careers in Devon visit our sector pages (coming soon)

Types of qualification

There are many different types of qualifications, including:

Essential Skills (Level 1 or Level 2)
Functional Skills (Level 1 or Level 2)
GCSE (Level 2)
AS level (Level 3)
BTEC (not BTech?) (Level 3)
TLevel (Level 3)
ALevel (Level 3)
HNC (Level 4)
HTQ (Level 4)
Foundation Degree (Level 4)
HND (Level 5)
Degree (Level 6)
Masters (Level 7)
Post Graduate (Level 8)

For a full list of qualifications levels visit What qualification levels mean: England, Wales and Northern Ireland – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Please note qualifications availability may change.

With so many qualification levels and descriptions it can sometimes feel challenging. As a starting point, we have put together resource links to help you understand the different levels and types of courses that you may be able to choose from.

Qualifications across the world

UK ENIC may be able to help if you need to compare overseas qualifications to the UK education system, comparing them to UK qualification and framework levels.

The purpose of the Statement of Comparability service is to allow persons with qualifications completed outside of the UK to evidence the comparable level of these in the UK education frameworks.

Please note that this is a payable service.