If you are looking for a job in health and safety, you had better have the right qualifications and professional status, new research has revealed.
NEBOSH examined 100 recent job adverts for health and safety managers or advisors and found that 93 specified a NEBOSH qualification and/or technician membership, or higher, of IOSH. Just three of the vacancies, which were advertised online by a variety of recruitment agencies, failed to specify an appropriate level qualification, or professional status.
Overall, 66 of the 100 positions mentioned at least one NEBOSH qualification; a diploma was specified in 45 cases, and a certificate-level qualification in 37 cases. Membership of IOSH at technician level or higher was mentioned in 48 of the adverts: five cited ‘Tech IOSH’, 17 specified ‘Grad IOSH’, and 26 positions called for chartered membership status.
The average top-end salary advertised was £45,000 per annum. The majority of vacancies (29 per cent) were located in London, with a further 28 per cent in the Home Counties and South East. Around 18 per cent were based in the Midlands or East Anglia, 7 per cent in the North West, 7 per cent in Wales and the South West, 5 per cent in Scotland and 2 per cent in Yorkshire and the North East.
NEBOSH chief executive Teresa Budworth said she was delighted with the high standards being set by employers when it came to health and safety roles. “It's clear that anyone seeking a job as a health and safety manager, or advisor in the UK will struggle to find a position without appropriate-level qualifications,” she claimed.
The view from the recruitment market concurs with NEBOSH’s findings. According to Stuart Vivian, HS&E recruitment manager with agency Allen & York, clients’ and advertisers’ awareness of qualifications and professional status has greatly improved in the last 10 years. He told SHP: “NEBOSH is certainly the most recognised qualification now, and the most dominant. In terms of what clients’ job specs say, it depends on who compiles them – the technical people, or HR. Most people understand what is meant by ‘diploma’ and ‘certificate’ but they are less sure about what exactly ‘chartered’ and technician’ membership of IOSH mean.”
The 2011 NEBOSH Jobs Barometer also revealed that 62 per cent of the advertised health and safety positions it analysed included responsibility for environmental management, up from 55 per cent in April last year. Job titles and responsibilities also included ‘quality’, ‘facilities’, ‘risk management’, ‘assurance’ and ‘well-being’.
Said Budworth: “The role of the modern health and safety manager is being extended into various areas, particularly environmental management. Where this is the case, I would like to see more employers specifying further relevant qualifications.
“Our latest study showed that while almost two thirds of advertised positions included responsibility for environmental management, an environmental qualification, such as the NEBOSH Environmental Diploma, was only occasionally required.”
However, Steve Hancock, of Convert Recruitment, believes that the 'e' specified in health and safety roles is "still very much a small 'e'". He explained: "Yes, there is an element of clients trying to get more value for money by hiring someone who can do H, S and E, but we haven't seen a dramatic merging of roles over the last couple of years. I would say the proportion of vacancies involving environmental aspects is more around 25 per cent."
This chimes in with SHP’s own basic quantitative analysis of all the vacancies advertised in the magazine in 2010 (by recruitment agencies and individual companies), which found that 29 per cent specified ‘e’ or the ‘environment’ in the job title and/or responsibilities, while just 7.2 per cent mentioned ‘quality’. Around 60 per cent asked for purely ‘health and safety’ managers/advisors/consultants.
