--- title: Career Coaching Practitioner url: https://thestudyguild.com/programmes/career-coaching-practitioner type: programme published: 2026-08-13 last_reviewed: 2026-08-13 reviewed_by: helen-croft publisher: The Study Guild --- # Career Coaching Practitioner A 10-week live career-coaching programme with assessed recordings, taught by an ICF PCC and CIPD member who still sees clients. ## Programme facts - Price: £449 (payment plans available, never discounted) - Format: Live online + self-paced - Live contact hours: 20 - Expected self-study hours: 40 - Duration: 10 weeks - Level: All levels - Tutor: helen-croft ## Learning outcomes - 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 ## Curriculum 1. **What career coaching is, and is not** — The boundary with recruitment, careers guidance, mentoring and therapy, set before any practice begins. Topics: Coaching versus advising versus placing; What you may not guarantee; When the issue is clinical; Informed consent 2. **Contracting two agendas** — The client wants a job. You cannot promise one. The contract has to survive that tension. Topics: Scope and session structure; Confidentiality when an employer pays; Outcomes you can actually measure; Ending well 3. **Intake that screens** — A first conversation that maps the work and catches presentations that should not be coached yet. Topics: Work history without interrogation; Constraints: visa, health, caring; Red flags and referral language; Notes you could defend 4. **Labour-market honesty** — How to talk about demand, pay and competition without inventing a market you have not checked. Topics: 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 5. **The next-role narrative** — Getting a client to a sentence a hiring manager can use, rather than a life story. Topics: Evidence, not adjectives; Career change without erasure; LinkedIn as a claim, not a brochure; Practice in triads 6. **Applications and interviews as coaching, not rewriting** — You are not their CV writer. You are the person who makes the thinking specific. Topics: When to refer to a specialist writer; Interview practice that is not theatre; Rejection without collapse; Recorded session one 7. **Employer-paid work** — Outplacement and internal career coaching, where the payer and the client are not the same person. Topics: Three-way contracts; What you report back; Redundancy ethics; Corporate pricing 8. **Running the practice** — Insurance, GDPR, a niche offer and a channel that can produce a second client. Topics: Professional indemnity; A single offer; Directory and referral sources; Your first ten clients 9. **Assessment clinic** — Live review of recordings against the rubric, with tutor and peer feedback. Topics: Presenting a recording; Common fails; Resubmission rules; Second assessed session 10. **What the certificate does not say** — A pass is assessed competence in this room. It is not a government careers licence. Topics: Unprotected titles; What buyers will still ask; ICF hours versus this programme; Continuing supervision ## Assessment 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. ## Upcoming cohorts - 2026-10-20 to 2026-12-22 — Tuesdays 19:00–21:00 UK, 10 weeks (open, cap 18) - 2027-02-09 to 2027-04-13 — Tuesdays 19:00–21:00 UK, 10 weeks (open, cap 18) ## 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: - [Regulated professions and their regulators](https://www.gov.uk/guidance/regulated-professions-and-their-regulators) — GOV.UK ## 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. --- Source: https://thestudyguild.com/programmes/career-coaching-practitioner · The Study Guild