To be honest there is no best way to become a health and safety professional, we've all got here in a hundred different ways. You can further your qualifications but you also need experience. Jobs are few and far between at the moment and so just look around for opportunities, if you can do some voluntary shadowing or something.

I followed a similar path to you but I was lucky in that i applied for and got a health and safety advisor's job for the company that I was already working for. However, for years I had been involved in health and safety as a safety rep and latterly as a departmental manager before being offered the H&S job. I got myself involved in the day to day working of the department, forming accident investigation teams, conducting risk assessments, helping out with auditing, departmental inspections, tracking the effectiveness of corrective actions etc etc etc. Many of my safty rep colleagues criticised my hand son approach, citing that what I was doing was management's job, but in my view the role of a safety rep was just as much to look after the health and safety of colleagues as it was the company's job. when I became a departmental manager I encouraged safety reps in my area to do the same as me. when the H&S job became available I took a cut in pay to take it. Anyway that's my story. My message is get involved as much as you can in the day to day mangement of health and safety where you work. It may be good advice to say do some voluntary work or job shadowing, but if you are already a safety rep you have the opportunity to get experience where you are already working. If it means staying back a couple of hours unpaid, then go for it. At least you will be doing something that you already have experience of.

On the bright side, the most important things you already have, work/life experience and a genuine interest in making things better. The best thing would be to get on with the company you're in, if your H&S team are any good, they'll never have enough bods so doing some work for them off your own bat would be good and then if/when jobs do come up, you'll be in the front seat or get a decent ref off your existing H&S Manager if its somewhere else. Quals wise, make sure IOSH recognise what you have as the grades are what people look for on a sift.