City & Guilds of London Institute
The City & Guilds of London Institute (City & Guilds) is a vocational education organisation in the United Kingdom. City & Guilds offers more than 500 qualifications over the whole range of industry sectors through 8500 colleges and training providers in 81 countries worldwide. Two million people every year start City & Guilds qualifications, which span all levels from basic skills to the highest standards of professional achievement (Honours, Master and Post Doctorate levels equivalent).
Founded on November 11, 1878 by the City of London and 16 livery companies – the traditional guardians of work-based training – to develop a national system of technical education, City & Guilds has been operating under Royal Charter (RC117), granted by Queen Victoria, since 1900. The Prince of Wales later King Edward VII was then appointed the first President of the Institute.
City & Guilds is a registered charity (no. 312832). The Institute’s president is now HRH The Princess Royal who accepted this role in June 2011 (following her father HRH The Duke of Edinburgh who held the position for nearly 60 years), and the current Chairman of Council is Sir John Armitt, took office in November 2012.
A meeting of 16 of the City of London’s livery companies in 1876 led to the foundation of the City and Guilds of London Institute for the Advancement of Technical Education (CGLI), which aimed to improve the training of craftsmen, engineering technicians, engineering technologists, and professional engineers. The two main objectives were to create a Central Institution in London and to conduct a system of qualifying examinations in technical subjects. Read more.
City & Guilds continues as an examination board offering a large number of qualifications mapped onto the British National Qualifications Framework (NQF). The most common are the vocational qualifications, from Entry-level to Level 3. Read more.
City & Guilds offers a suite of higher level qualifications in a wide range of subjects ranging from Professional Engineering, Engineering Technology, Management, Building Services Engineering to various apprenticeships, for higher technicians, tradesman, Craft, Travel and Tourism.
These qualifications consist of outcomes-based units, covering core, specialised, and key management areas, which are assessed by means of written assignment. Read more.