Hi everyone, been quality manager for nearly 8 years and would like to capitalise in quality managment. So I appretiate anyone could provide me with good reference of quality schools in the UK so that I could prepare a quality auditor certificate. Thanks.
You're probably best off starting your own thread on this; it's a bit off topic!
Anyway, welcome to the board. First thing I would say is if you want to work as a Quality Auditor in the UK, there is to my knowledge no such thing as a "quality auditor certificate".
Second thing is to explain what a QA auditor is (sorry if I'm being patronising here but it might not be obvious). A QA auditor is shop floor based, ensuring compliance in a factory. Not generally great pay but if you've got something about you, there is a shortage of QA Managers and Technical Managers in the UK so with a bit of work you could get somewhere better. Note a QA auditor does not generally do a lot of auditing or where they do, it tends to be simple day to day auditing. For this job I would recommend Level 3 food safety in manufacturing and Level 3
HACCP. Even with little experience with those qualifications you will probably get a role in a factory somewhere as long as you have the right to work in the EU.
If you wanted a management role or a role auditing other companies then you would need level 4 food safety in manufacturing and level 4
HACCP also (for the auditing role particularly) you would need some kind of "lead auditor" course; ideally in something relevant (e.g. BRC or ISO22000) or you might get away with an internal auditing course.
For training location; in my opinion, Campden are the best but they're not cheap
http://www.campden.co.uk/. Bear in mind that you will probably have to start (at least) at Level 2 and work up to Level 3 in each qualification; if you have no previous knowledge you might have to start at Level 1. Also Level 4
HACCP particularly will be very difficult unless you have a good amount of food experience. Lots of people fail that exam. Quick tip though is if you do need to do Level 1 and 2, you might be able to find a cheaper, local course (or even an online one). I'd say if costs or time are tight, save your money to do Levels 3 and 4 at Campden and just get the others out of the way.
Personally though, I'd try to get into the food industry in the UK through the production route; generally it's not badly paid (QA auditors are normally paid similar or worse amounts than production staff), it will give you a bit of "hands on" experience if you don't have it already and then you can impress your bosses with the fact you are also doing courses outside. QA auditor roles IME come up very frequently and and they will probably fund you to do Level 2 food safety for production anyway so if you then do Level 2
HACCP in your own time they may get you into a QA role (seeing how keen and proactive you are) and fund the (more expensive) Level 3 courses for you.