Qualifications for Property Professionals case study

March 2011

Nikki Lewis works for CPS Homes, specialising in property in Cardiff and Cardiff Bay, South Wales.

Nikki has recently taken the National Federation of Property Professionals (NFoPP) Technical Award in Residential Lettings and Property Management. This is the industry's qualification of choice. Asset Skills, the Sector Skills Council for property, secured funding from the Welsh Assembly Government's Step Up fund to part-subsidise property staff who wanted to improve their skills through taking the vocational qualification with 50% of the course and exam costs.

The qualification was recommended to Nikki by his superiors. It was specific to his job role and seemed the obvious next step for his career progression.

"The course was very relevant, covering subjects and situations that I had already encountered in my day-to-day work," he said.

Nikki had no prior experience in the property sector as he joined CPS Homes straight from leaving school at 16 years of age. He decided that he would like to enhance his role within the company and was offered the NFoPP course.

Nikki did most of his studying at home while continuing his day job. He was mainly self-taught using the Technical Award in Residential Letting and Property Management binder.