• Advance your career

We help established professionals like you develop the knowledge and skills you need to advance your career through accredited training programmes.

If you’re already established in your career, you’ll know that the learning process never ends!

Learning is critical if you want to progress to new or more senior roles. Even if you’re happy in your role, the way we all work is constantly changing and keeping your knowledge and skills up to date and fresh is essential if you don’t want to fall behind.

A lot of this learning takes place informally through conversations with colleagues, reading published articles and information or watching YouTube videos.

However, sometimes a more structured approach is helpful - especially if a qualification is important. 

This is where we come in.

The sections below provide additional information to help you consider and assess your options for professional development. They then describe how we can help with each of them in a bit more detail. We hope it's useful but please remember we are always here to provide free and impartial advice so do get in touch using the form or contact number on this page.

If you’re already working in a role for an employer and seeking further learning to support your career, you essentially have four options:

  • Commercial open short courses
  • Professional Development Apprenticeships
  • Nationally recognised qualifications
  • A bespoke programme for your employer

The table below outlines the pros and cons of each option.

Open short courses

Pros

Cons

  • Quick to complete
  • Minimal disruption to work
  • Lots of subjects to choose from 
  • Research shows that retention of knowledge and skills learned deteriorates a lot over time
  • Learning is general/theoretical in nature and not relevant to your workplace or role
  • High cost per hour of training
  • Possible need to travel long distance
  • Often no formal accreditation/recognition
  • Significantly reduced availability following Covid-19
  • We can't help!

Professional Development Apprenticeships

Pros

Cons

  • Rules forbid charging any fees to candidates (at all)
  • Learning is contextualised to your specific workplace and role
  • New knowledge and skills are embedded through immediate use in the workplace
  • Nationally recognised accreditation
  • Durations are generally 15-18 months or more
  • Substantial commitment required to training during working hours
  • Can be lonely if no other employees are participating

Nationally recognised qualifications

Pros

Cons

  • Learning is contextualised to your specific workplace and role
  • New knowledge and skills are embedded through immediate use in the workplace
  • Nationally recognised accreditation
  • Quicker to complete than an apprenticeship (durations range from 6 to 12 months)
  • You can work on coursework in your own time
  • No government subsidy so full fees are payable (although some training providers may offer access to Adult Learning Loans to spread the cost)
  • Can be lonely if no other employees are participating

Bespoke employer solutions

Pros

Cons

  • Very specifically tailored to the needs of your workplace
  • Could be expensive depending on the need (though can still be very cost effective)
  • No national accreditation

 

It's been a fairly well kept secret until quite recently but apprenticeships are no longer just for young people starting a career. You can now complete an apprenticeship right up to retirement age!  

And there are apprenticeship programmes at all levels of education, right up to Master's degree.  

They also often provide a route to membership of professional bodies such as:

  • the Chartered Management Institute
  • the Association of Accounting Technicians
  • the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development
  • the Chartered Institute of Marketing

and many others. 

Professional Development Apprenticeships are always free to the candidate.

This is why more and more established professionals are looking at apprenticeships for their development.

Employers also often prefer the apprenticeship option for developing their staff for financial reasons. There are two possible reasons for this:

  • if the employer is paying the apprenticeship levy, they have in effect already paid for the course and want to use the funds they have already spent to benefit their staff
  • if the employer is not paying the levy, the government funds 95% of the cost of apprenticeship training. 

For more information about participating in an apprenticeship, please have a look at our Apprenticeshp information for Established Professionals.

For more information about specific apprenticeships, please look at our list of Professional Development Apprenticeships. This provides links to more detailed information sheets about individual courses.

If an apprenticeship doesn’t suit your circumstances, we offer a range of nationally recognised professional development qualifications in association with professional membership organisations and awarding bodies under our 'Boom Training and Development' portfolio.

You can find a list of qualifications currently available here.

If you'd like more information and advice, please get in touch using the phone number or contact form on this page.

In addition to externally recognised courses, Boom Training is able to provide bespoke training programmes for individual employers. Our learning and development consultants can work with your employer to design a programme that meets your specific needs and if you have a group of staff that might benefit, this can often be an extremely cost effective way to have a major impact on a group of staff.

If you'd like more information and advice about this, please get in touch using the phone number or contact form on this page, it's free and impartial.

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Get in Touch

We are:

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In partnership with: 

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Contact us:
Unit 7, Centenary Plaza, Southampton, SO19 9UL
023 8000 4210 (Candidates and general enquiries)
023 8000 4209 (Employers)
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