What Level 8 means

The framework and its levels

England places every regulated qualification on a single ladder, the Regulated Qualifications Framework, which runs from Entry Level at the bottom to Level 8 at the top. The ladder was built so that qualifications of very different kinds could be compared on one measure: how demanding the learning is. A rung on it says nothing about how long a qualification takes, how it is taught, which organisation awards it, or what the certificate looks like. It describes the standard of the work and nothing else.

The rungs most people recognise are the school ones. GCSEs at grades 4 to 9 sit at Level 2, A levels at Level 3. Higher education then occupies the upper half: Level 4 corresponds to the opening year of a bachelor's degree, Level 5 to the second, Level 6 to an honours degree and Level 7 to a master's. Level 8 is the last rung, and its familiar occupant is the doctorate. A PhD, a DBA, an EdD and every other doctoral degree awarded by a university is placed there. So, less familiarly, is a small number of regulated vocational qualifications, including the two diplomas this site describes.

That a diploma and a doctorate share a rung surprises people, and it is the source of most of the confusion around Level 8. The rest of this chapter tries to remove it.

What the descriptor asks for

Each level has a published descriptor, a short statement of what a learner at that level should know and be able to do. The descriptors are deliberately generic so that they can apply to a plumbing qualification and a philosophy degree alike. They are still worth reading closely, because they are what the qualification's writers had to aim at and what its assessors have to judge against.

At Level 7 the descriptor speaks of highly specialised knowledge, some of it at the forefront of the field, and of the ability to evaluate complex problems and take responsibility for decisions in unpredictable settings. It is the language of the expert practitioner. At Level 8 the language shifts. The learner is expected to hold knowledge at the most advanced frontier of a field of work or study and at the interface between fields; to develop original insights, methods or approaches that extend or redefine existing knowledge; to make judgements where the implications of methods and results are unsettled; and to take responsibility for leading others to do the same.

Two words in that summary do most of the work: original and unsettled. Below Level 8 you are asked to master and apply what is known, with increasing independence and judgement as you climb. At Level 8 you are asked to add to it, or at least to work competently where the answers are not yet agreed. That is the doctoral standard, and it is why the level is where doctorates live. It is also the standard against which a Level 8 diploma's units are written and its assignments marked. A learner who completes one has been asked to think at doctoral level, in a bounded way and for a limited time. That is a true statement, and a useful one, provided it is not inflated into something it does not say.

Regulated, vocational, credit-rated

A Level 8 diploma is three things at once, and each word carries a specific meaning.

Regulated means that the qualification is offered by an awarding organisation recognised by Ofqual, that it has been placed on the public register with its own number, level and credit value, and that the awarding organisation is bound by Ofqual's conditions in how it designs, assesses and quality-assures it. Regulation is of the awarding organisation rather than of each qualification individually, but the practical effect is that a qualification on the register has been through a process that a private certificate has not.

Vocational means that the qualification is built around practice. Its units ask you to apply strategic thinking and research method to organisations and problems you know, and the evidence you produce is judged on whether it demonstrates the competence described in the learning outcomes. This is a different design from a research degree, whose single purpose is a contribution to knowledge examined by peers. Vocational is not a lesser word; it describes what the qualification is for.

Credit-rated means the qualification has a size, expressed in credits, and each credit represents a notional ten hours of learning. The OTHM diploma is 180 credits; the Qualifi diploma is 160. A doctorate, by contrast, is rarely credit-rated in the same way, and a DBA that is might carry 540 credits. Size and level are independent. A small qualification can be at a high level, and that is exactly what a Level 8 diploma is.

What the level does not tell you

Because the level is a statement about standard alone, there is a list of things it cannot tell you, and it is worth having the list in front of you whenever a provider leans on the phrase "doctoral level".

It does not tell you the size of the qualification. A 160-credit diploma and a multi-year doctorate are both Level 8. It does not tell you who awards it: a university with degree-awarding powers, or an awarding organisation whose authority comes from Ofqual recognition. It does not tell you what you will be called afterwards. Completing a doctorate confers the title of doctor; completing a diploma confers a diploma. It does not tell you how the qualification will be received by a particular university, employer or professional body, each of which decides for itself what weight to give it. And it does not tell you whether the qualification is a degree, because it is not one.

None of this diminishes the diploma. It simply keeps the claim honest: the level is the height of the bar, not the length of the run-up.

Level 8 in other frameworks

Readers outside England, or applying to institutions outside it, will meet other frameworks. The Framework for Higher Education Qualifications, used by universities across England, Wales and Northern Ireland, has its own Level 8, and doctoral degrees sit there; the two frameworks are aligned at that level. Scotland's framework runs to twelve levels, with doctorates at Level 12. The European Qualifications Framework has eight levels, and its Level 8 is broadly the doctoral level, to which the English RQF Level 8 is referenced.

Alignment between frameworks is a statement about comparability of standard, made by the bodies that maintain them. It is not a promise that a qualification at one framework's Level 8 will be recognised for a specific purpose in another jurisdiction. If you intend to use a Level 8 diploma outside the United Kingdom, whether for doctoral entry or for employment, ask the institution concerned rather than relying on the alignment alone.

How to read a register entry

The Ofqual register is public and free, and every claim on this site about level and credit can be checked against it in a minute. Search by the qualification number shown on the programme page. The entry gives the awarding organisation, the full title, the level, the total credits and the total qualification time, together with the qualification's status and the date from which it has been available.

Three things to check. That the level says 8. That the awarding organisation is the one the provider names. And that the status is current rather than withdrawn or in its final registration period, which would mean the qualification is being retired. If a provider cannot give you a register number, or the number leads to an entry that does not match what they have told you, that is the answer to your question about the qualification.

The next chapter takes the definition established here and sets the diploma beside the two doctorates it is most often compared with.