Career Development

What should you be doing to develop your career? Organisations are less willing to make long-term commitments to individuals. Security lies not in employment but in employability. To maintain employability you have to be willing to regularly learn new skills. Careers are now increasingly seen not as being ‘chosen’ but as being constructed, through the series of choices about learning and work that people make throughout their lives.

Here we provide information and resources to help you choose suitable courses to enhance your employability in the professions. The Sector Summaries provide useful information on qualifications and routes into professional careers and also information on approved courses.

There are thousands of providers of courses and many ways of studying – we provide information on a small selection of resources which we found useful to help you decide what course you might want to follow:

How to choose that course from Direct Gov, as well as careers advice from which provides tips on how to evaluate the courses on offer and enables you to search 90,000 courses.
The International Correspondents School also provides advice on how to assess the right course for you.
Reed.co.uk - Learning Centre lists various courses provider by their training partners.
A Career Change provides expert advice and tips on career development.
The Skills Funding Agency has information on training, funding and sources of advice and help.
Direct Gov enables you to search for training by specific jobs.
Career Shifters although mainly for people changing careers, provides some useful tips on developing your career.
Learndirect also provides information on improving your career prospects.
CRAC: The Career Development Organisation supports those who help people make career decisions with up to date knowledge of career pathway options and resultant decision making. You will find information here about relevant research and policy around career development.
NCC Home Learning offer courses in a range of sectors that will allow you to improve your career prospects from home

Funding

How to fund your career development - find information on Professional and Career development loans and general information on funding learning. There is also information on financial help for adult learners and on funding post-graduate study.
Paying for Further Education (FE) Courses has good information on various ways to fund your development and help on understanding how you can afford it. There is also information on higher education (HE) funding.
Also The Skills Funding Agency as above.

Courses