Facilities Management Qualifications Overview

Awarding bodies

There are two main awarding bodies for Facilities Management qualifications, as shown below.

The Institute of Leadership and Management, part of the City & Guilds Group

The British Institute of Facilities Management, the 'natural home' of facilities management in the UK

Our students have achieved a 96% pass rate for the latest round of BIFM exams.

Our students have achieved a 100% pass rate for the latest round of City & Guilds / ILM exams.

We would like to congratulate them on their impressive achievement.

Different qualifications

Until 2009 the range of Facilities Management qualification courses that tuition providers could offer had been somewhat limited, restricted in the main to offering learners help in studying for the British Institute of Facilities Management Part I, Part II and 'Qual' and also from 2004 when the City & Guilds Facilities Management Foundation programme was introduced.

New Qualifications Format

The nature of nationally recognisable qualifications is changing and before long almost all qualifications will have changed to incorporate the same structure, or format. The purpose of this section is to provide an overview of the new format and serve as a tool that allows prospective learners to decide which qualification type would suit them best and to make the right choices accordingly.

Why the Change?

It is not uncommon for people to wonder why a change is taking place, but the following analogy should help in some way. Traditionally, all qualifications had their own name such as:

City & Guilds FM Foundation programme
BIFM Part I / Part II / The Qual
PRINCE II Practitioner
Introduction to Project Management
Recognition in Management Principles

... and so on

Clearly it would be hard to know which has more relevance or importance when compared to another. The new qualifications have names or titles such as:

Level 2 Award in Supervisory Management
Level 3 Award in Facilities Management
Level 3 Certificate in First Line Management
Level 4 Diploma in Facilities Management
Level 4 Diploma in Project Management
Level 5 Certificate in Facilities Management
Level 5 Diploma in Personnel Management