Posted By FJ With this window of opportunity you might well find that in the year you can achieve enough relevant experience to get NVQ4- one of the routes towards full Chartered membership (note that it is not the only hurdle to climb). Talk to Membership on 0116 257 3100- they are very helpful.

Posted By C.J. I took this route towards fulfilling the membership requirements about 3 years ago and I do not regret it, though my circumstances were slightly different from those you have described. I had previously completed a health, safety & environment degree, which was very good but did not fulfil josh’s membership requirements, & I had 3+ years experience in safety, so I completed the course solely to become a member of IOSH rather than to learn what I needed to know to do my job. Employers have no problem with it I have moved jobs since and received various offers, though it seems a bit strange writing’ Post Graduate Module’ on your CV. I only did about ¼-½ of the recommended amount of studying (which I think was quoted as 550 hours) and passed with relative ease (Merit). Though I think a lot of people failed as there was a lot of maths in the course e.g mathematical modelling & noise assessment calculations etc. that did not come up in the exam, which caught a lot of people out who had studied that in depth. For a 5 month course you do learn quite a lot, albeit engineering type safety issues (failure analysis etc), I wouldn’t say it teaches you how to do a job as a H&S manager/advisor as such for that a taught course would probably be better, but the course was perfect for me and I would highly recommended it to anyone who was in a similar position to myself.