Leading Awarding Body Promotes Thousands of Short Courses

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City & Guilds, the UK’s leading awarding body for work-related qualifications, is promoting over 2000 one day and short courses in its bi-annual Time to Learn Directory.

Each year the organisation awards 1.3 million certificates to learners working in more than 500 different subjects, ranging from beauty to catering and management. Now, in an attempt to get more people to pursue vocational and professional courses, City and guilds has created its annual “Happiness Index” to show which careers give the biggest job satisfaction.

The City and Guilds Happiness Index was produced based on a sample of 1,301 employees in 610 academic professions and 691 vocational occupations throughout the UK. Respondents were asked to grade their level of happiness on a scale of 1-10, with 1 being very unhappy and 10 being very happy.

Happy Workers and a Sunny Outlook

Sitting proudly at the top of the Happiness Index are Beauty therapists, who in the survey were found to have an average happiness rating of 9.2 out of 10. The Clergy came second, with Florists jumping a huge 14 places to sit cheerily in third place. Other happy vocational workers included hairdressers, chartered engineers and Care assistants.

The results also found that workers get happier with age. Vocational workers aged 50 and above gave average happiness ratings of 8.7 out of 10, compared with an average of 8.2 for those under 30. Linking happiness at work with the feelgood sunny days of summer, City & Guilds believe that this is the perfect time to resolve to learn, with the short courses giving a small taster of what the future could hold.

Satisfied with Satisfaction

Manager of Time to Learn at City & Guilds, Jonathan Freeman, said: “Job satisfaction and happiness is about reaching your full potential and discovering your own creativity. These short learning breaks let you develop existing skills as well as trying out new interests. You have time to stop and think about what you have achieved and what you really want to do.”

Examples of available courses include joining the happy beauty therapists for Aromatherapy in Cheshire, Massage in Lancashire or Reflexology in Stroud. Floristry is another option, with courses being held in Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire. Jonathan Freeman added: “I must admit, the course that intrigues me most in this edition is “Ladybirds and Lust: Sex and Violence in the insect World” that”ll be a must for all the budding David Attenboroughs among us! Although I”m not sure it is a “happy” future for the insects.”

Joel Goldman

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