Career Coaching Practitioner
Get assessed on recorded career-coaching sessions by an ICF-credentialled former HR lead, including the labour-market honesty this niche usually skips.
Taught and assessed by
Helen CroftProfile pending contract
- Live teaching
- 20h
- Self-study
- 40h
- Duration
- 10 weeks
- Weekly load
- ~6h
What you will be able to do
- Contract a career-coaching engagement that names scope, confidentiality and what you will not promise
- Run a structured intake that separates a job-search problem from a clinical one
- Hold a labour-market conversation without inventing salaries or guaranteed outcomes
- Coach a client through a next-role narrative they can say in one sentence
- Refer when the work has become therapy, and document that referral
- Price and position a career-coaching offer from a costed income target
Who this is for
- Coaches adding a career niche to an existing practice
- HR and L&D professionals moving into private career coaching
- Outplacement and redundancy-support practitioners who have never been assessed
- Career changers who will be recorded coaching, not collecting a PDF
Who this is not for
- Anyone promising job outcomes or salary figures they cannot source
- Anyone seeking a statutory recruitment or careers-guidance licence this programme does not award
- Anyone unwilling to be recorded in a career-coaching session
What you need before you start
- No prior coaching qualification required
- Two practice clients for recorded sessions, which we help you find
What you will actually learn
10 modules · 10 weeks · 20h live
What career coaching is, and is notThe boundary with recruitment, careers guidance, mentoring and therapy, set before any practice begins.
Covered in this module
- Coaching versus advising versus placing
- What you may not guarantee
- When the issue is clinical
- Informed consent
Contracting two agendasThe client wants a job. You cannot promise one. The contract has to survive that tension.
Covered in this module
- Scope and session structure
- Confidentiality when an employer pays
- Outcomes you can actually measure
- Ending well
Intake that screensA first conversation that maps the work and catches presentations that should not be coached yet.
Covered in this module
- Work history without interrogation
- Constraints: visa, health, caring
- Red flags and referral language
- Notes you could defend
Labour-market honestyHow to talk about demand, pay and competition without inventing a market you have not checked.
Covered in this module
- Where to look things up
- What to do when you do not know
- Salary conversations without a fake band
- AI and the roles that actually moved
The next-role narrativeGetting a client to a sentence a hiring manager can use, rather than a life story.
Covered in this module
- Evidence, not adjectives
- Career change without erasure
- LinkedIn as a claim, not a brochure
- Practice in triads
Applications and interviews as coaching, not rewritingYou are not their CV writer. You are the person who makes the thinking specific.
Covered in this module
- When to refer to a specialist writer
- Interview practice that is not theatre
- Rejection without collapse
- Recorded session one
Employer-paid workOutplacement and internal career coaching, where the payer and the client are not the same person.
Covered in this module
- Three-way contracts
- What you report back
- Redundancy ethics
- Corporate pricing
Running the practiceInsurance, GDPR, a niche offer and a channel that can produce a second client.
Covered in this module
- Professional indemnity
- A single offer
- Directory and referral sources
- Your first ten clients
Assessment clinicLive review of recordings against the rubric, with tutor and peer feedback.
Covered in this module
- Presenting a recording
- Common fails
- Resubmission rules
- Second assessed session
What the certificate does not sayA pass is assessed competence in this room. It is not a government careers licence.
Covered in this module
- Unprotected titles
- What buyers will still ask
- ICF hours versus this programme
- Continuing supervision
Dates and timetable
Career Coaching Practitioner runs as a live cohort over 10 weeks. Pick the start date that fits — every cohort gets the same tutor, curriculum and assessment.
| Starts | Live sessions | Cap | Status and action |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ends | Tuesdays 19:00–21:00 UK, 10 weeks | 18 | Choose this date → |
| Ends | Tuesdays 19:00–21:00 UK, 10 weeks | 18 | Choose this date → |
How you are assessed
Two full recorded career-coaching sessions submitted in weeks 6 and 10, assessed by Helen Croft against a published rubric covering contracting, labour-market honesty and referral judgement. Written feedback with one free resubmission. Both recordings must pass — attendance does not earn the credential.
Our accreditation applications are in progress. We do not display an accreditation mark before it is granted — see the current status.
After you pass
- Intake and career-coaching contract templates
- Pricing clinic
- Practitioner directory listing on passing
What is career coaching?
Career coaching is structured, non-clinical support helping a functioning adult decide a next role, tell a coherent story about their work, and take the actions a job search actually requires. It is not recruitment, not statutory careers guidance, and not therapy. A career coach does not place people into jobs or guarantee an outcome.
The useful version looks like contracting, a screening intake, labour-market conversations that can survive a fact-check, and referral when the presenting issue is depression, trauma or a visa problem the coach cannot touch.
The cheap version is a CV template and a motivational PDF. Buyers can tell.
Do you need a qualification to be a career coach in the UK?
No. Career coaching is not a regulated profession, so no qualification is legally required to use the title or charge. Informed buyers still ask who marked your practice. A self-paced diploma cannot tell them whether you contracted well or referred when the work became clinical.
Sources
How is this different from a self-paced career-coaching diploma?
It runs live with a capped cohort, is taught by an ICF-credentialled former HR lead, and requires two marked recordings to pass. A self-paced diploma delivers modules. This delivers assessed competence, tutor feedback on your actual sessions, and a peer group that will hear you invent a labour market if you try.
Is this a careers-guidance or recruitment licence?
No. Statutory careers guidance and regulated recruitment activity sit in different frameworks. This programme trains private career coaching. If a job specification names a guidance qualification or a recruitment licence, buy that product from a provider who awards it. We will not relabel ours to match the spec.
Common questions
Is career coaching regulated in the UK?
No. The title is unprotected. Professional indemnity and a written scope are still the commercial requirements informed clients use.
Will this get me onto the ICF register?
No. We assess recorded sessions against a published rubric. An ICF credential is a separate application to the ICF, with its own hours and mentor-coaching rules.
Can I do this alongside a job?
Yes. Sessions run one evening a week and are recorded for catch-up. We ask you to attend at least seven of the ten live sessions because the assessed recordings depend on the practice.
Can I pay in instalments?
Yes. Three-month and six-month interest-free plans are available at checkout. The instalments always total exactly £449.
Related reading
Life Coaching Accreditation
A 12-week live life-coaching programme with assessed session recordings and business training, taught by an ICF Professional Certified Coach.
SubjectCareer coaching training in the UK
How to judge UK career-coaching training, why the title is unprotected, and when a self-paced diploma is the wrong buy for practice.
CareerHow to become a career coach in the UK
What a career coach actually does, whether the title is regulated, what buyers check, and a realistic route to a first paying client.
AnswerDo you need a career-coach qualification?
Career coaching is unregulated in the UK, so no qualification is legally required. Informed buyers still ask who marked your sessions.
CareerHow to become a life coach in the UK
What a life coach actually does, whether the title is regulated, what training buyers check, and a realistic route to a first paying client.