Conservation of the Historic Environment PgCert

Overview

This Conservation of the Historic Environment course will help you obtain key knowledge in the conservation of buildings and the historic environment with practical skills-based workshops and lectures.

Our alumni find employment as conservation officers, and can apply via their professional body to become accredited conservation architects, engineers and surveyors, as well as skilled conservation contractors.

The programme is recognised as having the biggest cohort in the country (Conservation Course Directors Forum 2016). Accredited by the Institute of Historic Building Conservation (IHBC), if you need to understand a building or landscape in order to apply appropriate conservation techniques managing change in the historic environment, this course is for you.

It is based on the modern campus of Parkside in Birmingham where new meets old, with access to historic campus buildings such as the wonderful School of Art, the first municipal College of Art in the country, and the School of Jewellery in the world-renowned Jewellery Quarter.

Employability

Enhancing your employability skills

Many past graduates have been commended by their employers by their knowledge of traditional materials, particularly lime. There are three main ways this programme enhances employability skills:

• Delivery by specialists in conservation, this programme give the students a unique opportunity to network within the profession.
• The practical workshops give students the knowledge and understanding of traditional building materials, and an ability to specify correct remedial measures.
• The assessments are all based on industry templates – such as the Conservation Plan or a report on timber defects, or an assessment of sources of funding for a building conservation project.

These skills will enhance graduate employability and are intrinsic to professional membership of the IHBC.

Applicants are normally expected to have a minimum of a 2:1 honours degree (or above), or equivalent, plus some built environment experience or practical construction experience in heritage and conservation. If you do not fulfil the entry requirements for a Masters programme, you may register for a Postgraduate Certificate/Diploma initially. Entry to the Diploma: Entry at Diploma Level may be considered with those with a skills background eg Bricklayer – City and Guilds, or NVQs. Based on your tutor's recommendation and if you meet the required assessment standards (marks averaging 50 per cent in all modules and with no marks lower than 40 per cent), you may then be permitted to transfer up to the Masters programme on the recommendation of the Programme Director.