Becoming an Assessor ~ The Assessor’s Guide | Brooks & Kirk
What is a qualified Assessor?
If you’re looking to explore a new career and step outside the boundaries of your current job, becoming an assessor may be the perfect opportunity for you. You can use all of your experience and/or qualifications that you already hold in your industry, and retrain to become an assessor.
An assessor is someone who guides apprentices and students through their vocational qualification in order to demonstrate their competence. Over a period of time assessors will collect evidence from their learner by using a variety of assessment methods, and provide guidance and support to help learners reach their maximum potential.
What does an Assessor do? What responsibilities does an Assessor have?
As with any job and career, these responsibilities can vary depending on the assessor’s organisation, the industry they are assessing in, and the environment they are assessing in – more on this ‘environment’ aspect later.
How do I choose an Assessor qualification? Which Assessor qualification is suitable for me?
First things first – there are no industry-specific assessor courses available; they are all universal qualifications. This means it is transferable across all sectors that you can prove occupational competence in. Whether you’re looking to assess in Health & Social Care, Bricklaying, or Dental Care, it’s all the same assessor qualification. You can become an Assessor if your industry has:
All Assessor courses are at Level 3 – there are no Level 2/4/5 (and so on) courses to become an Assessor. This is down to the difficulty of the qualification and does not reflect the level at which you can assess. You will be able to assess at the level you can prove occupational competence – for example, if you hold a Level 3 in Beauty, you can assess learners also working towards their Level 3. However, if you hold a Level 5, you can assess learners working towards a Level 5.
The course you need to complete to become a fully qualified assessor is the CAVA – the Level 3 Certificate in Assessing Vocational Achievement. There are some other assessor qualifications available, however they don’t fully qualify you to assess.
Level 3 Certificate in Assessing Vocational Achievement – CAVA Assessor Course
We recommend this course the most to those who want to change their career and become an Assessor. This qualification allows you to assess learners’ occupational competence in their workplace and their vocational knowledge and skills in their learning or training environment. With this assessor course under your belt, you can become an NVQ Assessor, an On-Programme Assessor, or an End-Point Assessor.
If during your time researching you have been recommend the A1 Assessor course, or the D32/D33 Assessor course – this is the same qualification, but an up-to-date version. The CAVA qualification is the most up-to-date and current assessor course, and has been since 2010.
Level 3 Award in Assessing Competence in the Work Environment
This assessor course qualifies you to carry out assessments with learners in their workplace. It does not allow you to assess in the learning environment, and you cannot deliver any workshop or classroom based training.
Level 3 Award in Assessing Vocationally Related Achievement
This assessor course is effectively the opposite of the previous, and qualifies you to assess in the learning environment. As you may have guessed, this does not qualify you to carry out assessments in the workplace.
Level 3 Award in Understanding the Principles and Practices of Assessment
This course does not qualify you to assess in the learning environment or the workplace. It is a knowledge based course, and is best suited for current assessors with an out-of-date assessor qualification or that are looking to enhance their assessing skills and knowledge.
What are the benefits of becoming an Assessor?
A lot of people choose to become an Assessor in order to help young people in their industry succeed. They get satisfaction from seeing someone they have helped develop their knowledge and skills, achieve their goals.
If you’re someone who has spent years in a role and are getting fed up with it, becoming an assessor is the best way to switch it up whilst utilising your experience. Or, if you’re looking towards getting promoted, an assessor qualification under your belt can boost your employability. Employers are always looking at ways to improve their team, and developing an in-house training team is a great step to take.
Some people just want to slow down and get a flexible job, or want to get a better work-life balance. Assessor jobs vary from full-time, to part-time, to freelance. You have the potential to work as-and-when you like, or even do some extra hours outside of your normal job to help combat the cost of living crisis.
Taking on a new role will always have its challenges – but how rewarding is it when you overcome them? You can get the ultimate job satisfaction by becoming an assessor. Once you’ve spent some time as an assessor, there is a career progression opportunity just waiting for you.
How much can I earn as an Assessor?
The all important question – what is the pay like for an assessor? This varies as with any job, depending on the location, the employer, and the hours you will be working.
According to Totaljobs, the average salary for an assessor is £32,500. If you’re looking at working in London, the average is £42,500 – but if you’re based in, for example Derby, it’s back down to the £32,500 mark. Remember this is just an average and some employers may pay more or less.
Our friends at NVQAssessor.org.uk wrote a great blog a short while ago about 3 reasons to become an assessor and included a detailed section about the assessor wage and what to expect.
Can I enrol on a government-funded assessor course?
You can but there’s a catch.
In 2021, the Government started offering free Level 3 courses to eligible adults, and the assessor course did fall in to this category – HOWEVER. It’s a big however. The eligibility criteria is ’19 or over and do not already have a level 3 qualification or higher’.
9 times out of 10, those who are looking into becoming an assessor already hold a level 3 qualification or higher, as this is what they intend on assessing themselves. So, the majority are unfortunately not eligible to undertake this assessor qualification government funded.
You also don’t need to enrol on a university degree or an open university assessor course in order to become an assessor. At Brooks and Kirk, we specialise in Assessor, IQA and Tutor training and have done so for 25 years. Our 5* reviews demonstrate that you’ll be in good hands with us. Whilst we don’t offer any loan-based funding methods, we do have instalment plans available so you can start your new career for just £62 per month.
Am I eligible for the assessor course?
If you are 19 or over and have that all important occupational competence, then yes you are eligible to enrol onto the assessor course!
There aren’t actually any eligibility requirements to enrol onto the CAVA course, but the occupational competence is key to getting an assessing job upon completion.
