@bakes0310, I just wanted to tag you as I missed this thread but I am a chartered safety professional working for a US multinational conglomerate (I'm based in UK).
1) I did the NEBOSH general certificate in 2008 through a 15 day "crash course" style with 0 experience of any H&S and it was hard (still passed it). Don't get me wrong, if I had the background knowledge then it would have helped (obviously) but my degree was in acoustics and sound technology, so I only really did the course after I was made redundant by the BBC and assumed the crash course style was the way to go.... *facepalm*. Day release over 15 weeks is much preferred and that's how I later did my NEBOSH environmental certificate.
My progression in terms of qualifications went a bit like this (some are enviro qualifications). I've put in brackets where the membership to IOSH is affected... some companies will pay for this membership, but in my experience ALL job adverts ask for GradIOSH and the best ones demand CMIOSH, so you'd be foolish to not join IOSH. Note: I deliberately didn't join until I was GradIOSH as I felt it was a waste of money, so you don't need to have x number of years membership but you do need to be an active member to sit the peer review interview for chartered status. Something to think about.
- NEBOSH General Certificate (TechIOSH)
- ISO 14001 Internal Auditor
- ISO 14001 Lead Auditor
- PgCert Occupational H&S Management (GradIOSH)*
- Preparing to Teach (a prelude to the PGCE but the company wouldn't fund the full thing)
- ILM Level 4 Diploma in Management and Leadership
- NEBOSH International Certificate in Environmental Management
- MSc Occupational Hygiene
* You can do the NEBOSH Diploma instead but the pass rate is horrendous and it doesn't get you any additional street cred, despite what they'll tell you. Ultimately, your goal should be chartered status (CMIOSH) so take the route that is easiest for you!
I did the PgCert, completed my IPD portfolio and attended the peer review interview in Leicester where I was granted CMIOSH status but a colleague of mine did it via the NVQ level 5 route which got him to the exact same level (except he also had to sit a series of open-book exams), so don't worry that you need to do things in a particular order. I personally preferred the distance learning approach of my PgCert and could have continued for another year to get the MSc but I didn't need it and ironically I could have done a PhD and it wouldn't have gotten me any higher up the IOSH membership tree.
2) Prior to my current position I've worked as a graduate H&S advisor to a major glass manufacturer circa £20k (20 minute commute), H&S regional advisor to an NHS trust circa £35k (1hr 15mins commute), and now as an EHS Manager in the Power industry circa £50k (15 minute commute). To give you an estimate, my "career" started 10 years ago and I probably could have moved around more if I'd been willing to travel, but it was the height of the recession and not many places were recruiting. I was just offered a role in Asia £20,000 tax-free per month which would mean a lot of travelling and time away from my soon-to-be-wife. There is money to be made contracting, if you want that... but you need to travel. I took the job with the NHS and planned to use it as a stepping stone in my career but the commute time was horrendous and being a regional man I was expected to travel up to 100 miles a day, 3 days a week. I can't tell you how many times I did a few training at 9am then traveled back to the office with lunch on the road, did some emails and then I was out visiting somewhere else. It started to feel like I wasn't getting anything productive done and that's when I knew it was time to leave. I even applied for a job with the local authority at £10k less because I wanted to get back to a "normal" role.
Feel free to shoot me an email or trust if you would like to know how I got from a to b, but I'll try and put it in the post anyway.
3) I've been responsible for a team of people in your current position and the best advice I would give, would be to shadow the H&S officer and see what they do firsthand. I was lucky in my role in the NHS, as I got involved in lots of areas of safety including construction of new hospital builds, developing training, risk assessments, lots of accident investigations and legal claims. You may find that the step from your position isn't as high as you think because the hard part isn't remembering the legislation, it's applying it practically.
E.g. I was asked to visit a clinic and risk assess manual handling injuries in staff. The manager wanted me to focus on training, but I turned it around and suggested that if they made x,y and z changes (simple things like having deliveries of medical records put on to the desks to avoid lifting and simplifying the work area to avoid twisting) they'd go further than blanketing the entire department with training that they could potentially ignore anyway.
4) Construction is a good area to get in to but it's also an area that is inherently more complicated to understand and police. I'd suggest getting some experience as a H&S officer before jumping in there straight away, particularly if your current position isn't in the industry. If you're in local government then you could always stay there but in the private sector those sorts of roles are seen as nonsense roles (or so I was told) due to the low level of risk that you deal with (relatively speaking).
