What Is QTLS? Qualified Teacher Learning and Skills Status Explained

What Is QTLS?

QTLS stands for Qualified Teacher Learning and Skills. It is a professional status for teachers and trainers in the further education and skills sector in England, awarded by the Society for Education and Training. The Department for Education says holders may be eligible to work as qualified teachers in schools in England.

Key takeaways

• QTLS means Qualified Teacher Learning and Skills. It is a professional status, not a course you enrol on and pass.
• It is awarded by the Society for Education and Training, and the Department for Education points anyone asking about it to that body.
• A QTLS holder who is a member of that society may be eligible to work as a qualified teacher in schools in England.
• Entry asks for a teaching qualification at Level 5 or above, Level 2 maths, Level 2 English and a Level 3 subject qualification.
• Professional formation runs for six months and asks for at least 230 hours of teaching groups of five or more learners.
• QTLS is an England specific status. It does not replace a TEFL qualification and employers abroad do not ask for it.

What Does QTLS Stand For, and Who Awards It?

QTLS stands for Qualified Teacher Learning and Skills. The four letters describe a professional status held by teachers and trainers in the further education and skills sector in England, which covers colleges, adult and community learning, work based training, prison education and the ESOL classrooms where a great many English language teachers in the United Kingdom actually work.
It is awarded by the Society for Education and Training, the membership body run by the Education and Training Foundation. The Department for Education does not award it and does not assess it. What the department does is recognise it, which is a different and more interesting thing.
The Foundation describes the status plainly. QTLS is designed for teachers and trainers working in the further education and skills sector, with appropriate and current teaching practice. Read that last clause twice, because it rules out anyone hoping to collect the status first and find the teaching job afterwards. You have to be teaching to earn it.

QTLS or QTS: Which One Does Your Job Need?

This is the question the whole topic turns on, and the answer surprises most people who ask it.
Qualified teacher status is the professional status attached to school teaching in England, gained through teacher training and assessed against the teachers’ standards. QTLS is the further education equivalent, gained by an already practising teacher who demonstrates their practice over a set period. Two routes, two sectors, one shared destination in law.
The Department for Education states the position on its own guidance page: if you are an experienced post-14 teacher and have QTLS status and membership of the Society for Education and Training, you may be eligible to work as a qualified teacher in schools in England.
Two conditions, both of them load bearing. The status on its own is not enough. Membership of the society has to be current as well, which means QTLS is the rare qualification you can effectively stop holding by not paying a subscription. Anyone relying on it for a school post should treat the renewal date as a professional obligation rather than an administrative nuisance.
Our guide to what qualified teacher status is and where it is legally required sets out the school side of the same picture.

The Published Facts on QTLS, and Where They Come From

Everything in the table below is quoted from the awarding body, the Department for Education or the statute book rather than paraphrased from experience, because this is a subject where confident summaries are usually out of date.

One detail in that table is worth pausing on, because almost nobody writes it down. The 2012 regulations that created the school recognition do not name the Society for Education and Training at all. They name the Institute for Learning, the body that awarded QTLS at the time, in a new paragraph added to the schedule of qualified teachers. The Department for Education’s current guidance names the Society for Education and Training instead. The recognition survived the change of awarding body, which is why you will still find articles online citing the older name.
How to cite this data. Attribute each row to the body named in the right hand column and give the check date of 24 September 2026, since fees and eligibility criteria are revised without notice and the government guidance page is maintained rather than frozen. If you are quoting this comparison rather than the underlying sources, cite The TEFL Institute and the same check date.

How Do You Get QTLS?

Through professional formation, which is the process of showing that you already teach to the required standard rather than being taught how to.
You apply to the Society for Education and Training, meet the entry criteria above, and then work through a structured programme while continuing to teach. The Foundation describes it as a six month programme taking around four hours a week, alongside at least 230 hours of teaching groups of five or more learners across the same period. Published fees are fifty five pounds to apply and five hundred and seventy pounds for the programme itself.
The subject requirement is the one that catches people out. You need a Level 3 or higher qualification in the subjects you teach for five or more hours a week. For vocational teachers the Foundation says it may accept a Level 2 qualification where there are five or more years of industry experience behind it, which is a sensible allowance for people who learned their trade before they taught it.
For an English language teacher the practical reading is this. Your subject is English language teaching, so the subject qualification and the Level 5 teaching qualification tend to be the same conversation, and a regulated Level 5 qualification on the Regulated Qualifications Framework is the level the criteria are written around.

Does QTLS Help You Teach English Abroad?

Honestly, no, and it is worth saying so plainly rather than letting the acronym do work it cannot do.
QTLS is a status defined by English regulations and recognised by an English government department. Language centres in Spain, online platforms hiring from anywhere and government placement schemes in Asia are not reading English further education statute. They ask for three things in some combination: a recognised English language teaching qualification, a degree where the visa rules demand one, and the right to work.
That said, it is not worthless on an international application either. A teacher who holds QTLS is demonstrably an experienced practitioner who has been assessed in a real classroom, and international schools and better paying institutions do read that signal. It simply is not the thing being asked for, and a strong answer to a question nobody asked is still not an answer.
The reverse is equally true, and we should say it even though we sell the other thing. A TEFL qualification will not give you QTLS, and it will not make you a qualified teacher in an English school. What it does is open the roles where teaching English is the job.

QTLS, QTS and a TEFL Qualification Compared

Three credentials, three different purposes, and a great deal of avoidable confusion between them.

The first two rows are statuses. The second two are qualifications. A status is permission to hold a kind of post, granted by a body with the authority to grant it. A qualification is evidence that you were trained and assessed. People use the words interchangeably in conversation and then discover, usually at the worst moment, that a job advert did not.
Where the rows meet is the Level 5 line. A regulated Level 5 teaching qualification is the entry ticket QTLS asks for, which is the single most useful thing an English language teacher in England can know about this status.

Where QTLS Genuinely Pays Off

There are three situations where the six months and the fees earn themselves back.
The first is a career in further education in England. QTLS is the recognised professional status of that sector, and in colleges it carries the weight that qualified teacher status carries in schools. If you teach ESOL or adult English in a college, this is your professional status rather than a curiosity.
The second is moving from further education into a school. The 2012 recognition exists precisely so that experienced post-14 teachers are not forced to retrain from scratch, and it has been in force for well over a decade now.
The third is pay and progression. Sector employers recognise the status in job specifications and in promotion criteria, and holding it removes the awkward conversation about whether an experienced college teacher is formally qualified. Many teachers pair it with structured continuing professional development, which is how the society expects members to maintain the status once they hold it.

Where QTLS Is the Wrong Tool

And three situations where it is not what you should be buying.
If your plan is to teach English abroad, QTLS is a long way round to a door it does not open. The employer wants a TEFL qualification, a degree if the visa needs one, and a clean background check.
If your plan is online teaching, the same applies with more force. Online platforms publish their requirements openly, and none of them asks for an England specific further education status.
If you are not currently teaching in the further education and skills sector, you cannot start. Current teaching practice is an entry condition, not something you arrange later, and the 230 hours have to happen somewhere real. Getting the teaching first is the step, and a recognised teaching qualification is usually what gets you that teaching.

Can You Hold QTLS and a TEFL Qualification?

Yes, and for anyone teaching English in the United Kingdom it is close to the natural pairing.
A Level 5 TEFL qualification trains you in the subject and is the kind of qualification the QTLS criteria are written around. QTLS then recognises you as a professional practitioner in the sector where that teaching happens. One is evidence of training, the other is recognition of practice, and they stack rather than compete.
The usual order is the qualification first, the teaching post second, the status third, because the status requires the teaching. Teachers who go the other way round tend to find the entry criteria waiting for them.
If you are still untangling the acronyms themselves, our guide to what a PGCE is and how it differs from a teaching status covers the other half of this confusion, and the full set is laid out on our TEFL qualifications and terminology page.

How to Check What a Job Actually Asks For

Three questions, in order, and they take about a minute.

• Is it naming a status or a qualification? QTLS and QTS are statuses. A TEFL diploma, a CELTA and a PGCE are qualifications. Answer the one in front of you rather than the one you happen to hold.
• Which country’s rules apply? QTLS is meaningful in England. It carries no legal weight in a Spanish language centre or a Vietnamese school, however good a teacher it proves you are.
• Does the advert state a level? A stated level means a regulated qualification, and a regulated qualification carries a reference number you can look up on a public register before you spend anything.

Your Next Step

If you teach in further education in England and you meet the criteria, the route is professional formation through the Society for Education and Training, and the Education and Training Foundation’s own pages are where to start. Nothing we sell replaces that process, and we would rather say so than sell you the wrong thing.
If your goal is to teach English abroad, online or in a language centre, the qualification employers name is a TEFL qualification with a level you can verify. Our 180 hour Ofqual regulated Level 5 TEFL Diploma is listed on the Ofqual register as 610/1571/4, awarded by Highfield Qualifications, organisation number RN5219. It is also a Level 5 teaching qualification, which is the level the QTLS criteria are written around. You can check that number before you pay, which is exactly what a regulated qualification is for.