What can you build on top of the apprenticeship certificate?

Many think a vocational education is the end of schooling. Far from it. As a trained gourmet butcher you have several paths if you want more — both within the trade and further up the education ladder. Here is the overview of what you can build on top of your journeyman's certificate.

The most direct path is to develop your skills further within your own field. You can take short courses in, for example, sausage making, smoking, charcuterie or a particular type of processing. Short further training courses for adults give you new techniques and new products to offer without having to take an entire new qualification.

• 01Short specialist courses in techniques such as smoking salting and charcuterie.
• 02Courses in food safety, allergens and quality control.
• 03Courses in sales, customer service and running the manned counter.
• 04Update of certificates as regulations change.

With experience you can move up and get more responsibility — become a foreman take responsibility for a department or for training new apprentices. Want to go that way there are courses and educations in management operations and having personnel responsibility that equip you to lead a team or business.

With a journeyman's certificate in hand you also have access to study further. You can build on with an academy education often available part-time alongside work or aim for a business academy or professional bachelor education in for example food science nutrition quality or management. It opens doors to jobs outside the counter itself.

You don't need to decide everything in advance. Start with your journeyman certificate, get some years in the trade, and feel what draws you — the deep craft, management or something else entirely. Talk to your trade union and education advisers when you want to progress; they know the options and can help you find the path that fits you.

“Your journeyman certificate is not the finish line — it's the starting line for the rest of your career.”