Becoming a Beauty Therapist Assessor

Following the industry’s blog, we wanted to talk about beauty therapy as a whole. As it covers so much within the industry! Anything from general beauty to eyelash treatments and even laser hair removal. In this blog we’re going to go through:

• What is a beauty therapist/beautician
• What can they do?
• Treatments and specific services
• The qualifications needed
• Roles and responsibilities
• Essential skills
• Salary
• Becoming an assessor or teacher
• Job Requirements

What are beauty therapists?

Known as beauty therapists or beauticians, they are trained professionals who use their specialist knowledge and skills to help their clients achieve the desired look. As well as provide a wide range of beauty treatments and therapies. As a beautician, you can decide to specialise in a specific area, for example, eyelash treatments. Or skin massage, where you can perform a range of massage treatments for your clients. A beauty therapist’s ultimate goal is to enhance their client’s appearance, whether that’s through makeup, skincare or eye and nail treatments.

Now you know a bit about what they are, what can they do?

What can Beauticians do?

As we’ve just discussed a beautician can offer many different services, depending on what they’re trained and qualified to do. They could be a cosmetologist, nail technicians which we mentioned in another blog or even skincare specialists. They cover several treatments applied to the body and face.

Any medical procedures such as cosmetic or laser surgery are not suited to a beautician, a medical aesthetician would perform these. However, you can progress further into laser hair removal with more training and qualifications. Additionally, you can work in skin care and massage where you will perform facials, waxing and other skin treatments. It would also be helpful if you know about other hair removal or waxing techniques, with the help of qualifications. Clients could also ask you for recommendations on products and additional treatments.

Some beauticians or salons may focus on a range of treatments, such as:

• Hair removal e.g. facial, leg and body
• Manicures and pedicures
• Eyebrow shaping, threading and tinting
• Spray tans and beds
• Massage, aromatherapy, hydrotherapy
• Facials that include cleansing, massaging and toning
• Makeovers
• Specialised treatments such as electro-therapy
• Non-surgical skin improvement treatments

Specialised treatments

So when it comes to specialising, you can train in many different areas. Such as lash lifts, brow lamination, lash extensions, and HD Brows. You can specialise further in intimate waxing and micro-pigmentation treatments. If you want to specialise in dermaplaning, you need to be a licensed professional such as a dermatologist or medical aesthetician. A few key specialisms are:

• Massage therapist
• Facial treatments
• Beauty treatments
• Personal care
• Semi-permanent makeup
• Laser/IPL hair removal
• Non-surgical aestheticians

So do you need a qualification?

Further training

Many beauty therapists go on to complete stand-alone courses that qualify them to use that skill or technique on their clients. This could be within your specialism such as a new eyebrow threading technique or offering semi-permanent makeup.

Qualifications and courses

To become a fully qualified beauty therapist you will need to have at a minimum a Level 2 and 3 beauty therapy qualification. This qualification is what most if not all employers look for when taking on candidates. When looking for the qualifications it’s important that you look for the awarding body it’s accredited with, as it may not be recognised and the employer and insurer may not take you on because they don’t recognise the qualification.

If you want to take any specialist routes, you will need to continue with training and qualifications for your specific area. This could be a Level 2 Certificate in eyebrow treatments and eyelash enhancements. Level 3 Certificate in eyelash extensions. Level 4 Diploma in advanced skincare or a Level 5 Certificate in laser tattoo removal.

Roles and Responsibilities

As we mentioned a beauty therapist can hold many roles and each responsibility is going to be different depending on experience and what you do. However, the general role of a beauty therapist is to take care of your client’s beauty and well-being. By providing a range of beauty and personal care treatments. Your main objective is to advise your clients on their individual needs.

You may also be in charge of checking and ordering inventory and health and safety measures. Typical responsibilities include regular and thorough sanitisation of workstations and sterilisation of any used equipment. Another responsibility could be answering the telephone, responding to emails and greeting clients. Or managing the booking system either diary paper-based or online check and order supplies.

Essential Skills

Being a beauty therapist means you’re working in a person-centred environment, so you need to have a range of customer service skills. These could be:

• Being friendly and welcoming in your manner and attitude
• Have a passion and interest in beauty
• Have some level of artistic skill as beauty treatments can be intricate and need precision
• Having the ability to make clients feel relaxed.
• Be able to explain treatment options and procedures clearly
• Being tactful
• Understanding – some clients will have these treatments to deal with something they don’t like about themselves
• Upselling the treatments that you offer as well as suitable products
• Stay up to date with any trends in your area
• Working as part of a team if necessary
• Have business awareness if you want to be self-employed.

Salary

The median wage of a beautician in the UK is £23,500 a year. On average they are paid £12.054 an hour. However, it really does depend on your experience and what you offer if you’re more specialist.

Becoming an assessor and tutor?

You can become a beauty therapist assessor and tutor, where you help and assist students to gain their Level 2 and 3 qualifications and skills. As an assessor and tutor, you may have a variety of roles to complete. This could be managing progression, having reviews with learners, managing e-portfolios and paper-based ones, as well as, lesson planning, and identifying and addressing gaps in achievement. But the roles may differ for each job and company.

To become an assessor you need to be fully qualified, so undertaking the Level 3 Certificate in Assessing Vocational Achievement (CAVA) is essential. This is what we can help with! We offer the CAVA course where you’ll be able to assess your learners. The course has flexible start dates, with up to 2 years to complete. It’s delivered in a blended learning style. Where most of it is delivered online but you will have to come to one of our offices for the day to assess two of our learners which we guarantee.

To become a tutor it’s kind of the same. You need to undertake the Level 3 Award in Education and Training (AET). In actual fact 7 tasks from the CAVA course cross over to the AET course, so with AET, you’re halfway done! You would also need to complete a Micro-teach to a small group of peers. This is held also in one of our offices, which is only for the day. Even better, we offer a bundle of these courses, where you actually save money in the process.

Getting a job as an assessor and tutor

Doing a quick Google search for Beauty therapy assessors, you get a lot come up on Indeed. Going through them they want you to be qualified in different things, such as nail tech, lash lifts and extensions, waxing, facials, laser removal etc. It all really depends on the job you’re looking for. However, they are asking for all the same requirements when we have looked. The employers want you to have a minimum Level 2 and 3 in beauty therapy. You need experience in the field or they could ask for experience in Salons or Spas.

A requirement they ask for is the CAVA qualification and the AET qualification. Sometimes you may see them asking for the A1 Assessor Award TAQA. This just means they want the CAVA qualification. PTTLS may also be mentioned. The AET qualification replaced the PPTLS, so they just want you to hold the teaching qualification. Some job adverts add wanting to see CPD logs where necessary.

If you have all this then you’re ready to take on the job! If you have any questions about anything we have mentioned within the blog, please don’t hesitate to contact one of our team on 01205 805 155 and we would be happy to help.