Coaching Qualifications

Coaching in the UK has gone through a huge transformation in the past 10 years or so. In a business sense it has transformed from business skills application to performance management and leadership style approach, using the skills more closely aligned to counselling. The other aspect that has come on in leaps and bounds is the area of executive coaching which in many respects has taken the place of mentoring senior managers and directors. Many organisations still use mentoring in graduate recruitment programmes and the education sector makes extensive use of mentors.

The issue of standards is still unresolved in the area of coaching in the context mentioned above, although the European Mentoring & Coaching Council has developed their Standards Prior to this comes the plethora of qualifications, which split predominately into two areas; certified programmes and then accredited programmes.

Certified programmes, in the academic sense, mean that the programme is acknowledged and recognised by the university, but is not actually a university qualification, whereas accreditation is acknowledged by the university, issued by the university and in many occasions actually delivered by the university.
The University of Strathclyde was the first formal university in Britain to certify an approach in its Certificate of Professional Development by the Department of Lifelong Learning. There have since been a number of other universities that have joined the party and more recently the Institute of Leadership and Management, a division of City & Guilds, has also developed an approach which is aimed more at accrediting centres to run qualifications rather than actually qualifying individuals as coaches.

The rise in the demand for coaching qualifications, over the past ten years or so has coincided with three major factors:

The first being the influence of the United States and the trends from the international coaching federation and Coach-U, both founded in the United States and whose early coaching style is rather more directive than its UK counterparts.

The second factor is the number of UK organisations that have gone through downsizing since the early nineties (post Thatcher boom) an individuals have had to skill up in other areas, executive coaching being one of them.

The third area is that of the workplace and in particular the demand for getting more out of people from less with regards to the number of people available. This has led to the drive for improved performance and managers and team leaders now have to do what they should have been doing in the first place which is enabling others to carry out these activities.

All of this has led to a rise in the demand for qualifications in the coaching market.

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Course Dates

ILM Level 5 VRQ Diploma
Venue - Stirling Management Centre
20th January 2009
23rd February 2009
23rd March 2009
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ILM Level 7 VRQ Diploma
20th January 2009
23rd February 2009
23rd March 2009
28th April 2009

Birmingham Level 7 VRQ Diploma
4th September 2008
20th October 2008
3rd November 2008
1st December 2008