RHS Qualifications FAQs

Level 2 is the ideal starting point for those wanting a route to employment in professional horticulture or further personal interest.

Our Level 1 qualifications are aimed at 14-19 year olds and adults with additional learning needs.

RHS Approved Centres deliver our qualifications and can help you with your individual needs and circumstances in all aspects of delivery and assessment.

Courses usually run over the academic year on a part time basis, starting in September. However, some centres also accept a new intake in the New Year.  Any learner looking to study via distance learning can enrol at any time during the year. Contact RHS Approved Centres directly for exact start dates.

Use our Find a centre tool to find your nearest centre.

All RHS Approved centres undergo a vigorous approval process and must meet certain approval criteria in order to deliver our qualifications. We are unable to make any recommendations.

Some Government funding is available for RHS Qualifications. Whether or not you are able to receive funding to help with the cost of a course depends on various factors such as your age, employment status, previous education and on the contracts or agreements your chosen provider has with different funding agencies.

Your chosen RHS approved centre will be able to advise you of any funding available. 

There is no particular order in which you need to achieve the qualifications at each level. It is down to personal preference as to whether you start with theory or practical, or study both at the same time. 

Some of our centres do deliver courses in the evening or at weekends. Contact your chosen RHS approved centre directly for further information relating to delivery days.

Yes, we have a number of centres approved to deliver our theory qualifications online. In addition to this, centres deliver face to face or by blended-learning. It is best to discuss learning options with your nearest centre.  
 
A list of approved providers can be found on our ‘Find a Centre’ tool.
 

Due to the nature of the practical qualification being hands-on, to achieve this qualification you will need to enrol at an approved centre.

There are no entry requirements at Level 2, all you need is a passion for gardening. At Level 3 some of our centres do require learners to hold an RHS Level 2 or equivalent.

You will need to enrol with an RHS Approved Centre. Use our 'Find a Centre' tool to discover your nearest centre.

Yes, to achieve the qualification centres are required to register all learners studying an RHS Qualification and ensure they are entered for the associated assessments.

A wide range of books and other learning resources which support the study of horticulture are available. RHS Qualifications does not recommend or endorse any specific learning resources and instead encourages students to seek guidance from their tutors on which resources best support the qualification they’re enrolled on.
 
RHS libraries offer postal loans which you may find beneficial - read more about the services our libraries provide.

Yes, all our centres support learners with any learning difficulty or disability. Your individual needs will need to be discussed with the approved provider.

Special considerations and reasonable adjustments are intended to be implemented at the time of an exam to ensure fair assessment and support a candidate who has been disadvantaged by temporary illness, injury or adverse circumstances which arose at, or near, the time of exam/assessment.

They must be applied for by the approved centre, on your behalf, where the exams/assessments are taken.

The prices displayed on our website are the registration, assessment and certification costs we charge approved centres and do not necessarily reflect the fees a provider will charge to learners.

In addition to the charges shown on our website, providers will have to take into account factors such as eligibility for public funding, the cost of teaching staff, buildings and any other resources or equipment that they make available.

Results are published within 50 working days of the exam date. Results must be obtained from the approved centre where you sat the exam.  DO NOT contact RHS Qualifications to obtain your results. You will only be referred back to the centre you enrolled/sat exams with.

You can see your results online using the RHS qualifications candidate web-portal. When your centre registered you for the qualification and exams you should have automatically received an email with log-in details.

If you don’t have an account or remember your log-in details then please follow the instructions below to set up a new account:

Without filling in any of the fields immediately click on ‘forgotten your password’, the next screen will request your email address, enter this and press ‘continue’ – you will then be sent an email with a link/instructions on how to set up a new account. If you don’t immediately receive this email, please check your junk/spam folder. If the received email doesn’t work, they do have an expiry time on them so do try requesting another new email before contacting us with a problem.

When you select a password, it asks you to include an item of punctuation; please ensure you use one of the punctuation items listed as an example – it has to be one of those. Please also ensure you set this up on a laptop or pc, rather than a mobile or tablet. If you have problems logging in, it may be worth trying another internet browser.

Once logged in, your registrations can be found under ‘My Learning, My Registrations’ and results, when released, can be found under ‘My Learning, My Achievements’.

If required, you will be able to print your results from the web-portal.

Certificates are dispatched within 30 working days of publishing the exam results.
 
For practical based qualifications, there are a number of steps involved in processing practical results. This includes reviewing some sample work submitted by the centre. Once we receive all the samples requested and this has been approved, certificates are published to the centre within 30 working days.  DO NOT contact RHS Qualifications to obtain information relating to your certificate, such as progress, date certificate will be issued etc. You will only be referred back to your centre.

All certificates are posted directly to the centre where you are enrolled and it is their responsibility to issue the certificates to you. Should learners have any queries relating to certification then these must be discussed with the centre.

Awarding Organisations are required to review their qualifications regularly. The changes we have made aim to ensure RHS Qualifications reflect current tasks and practices and meet the needs of today’s horticultural workforce with clear and defined routes for progression.

To ensure learners currently enrolled on an RHS Qualification will not be disadvantaged by the change, we have created transitional arrangements, and assessments for our existing qualifications will continue to be available for a period of time.

Further guidance on transitional arrangements can be found on our ‘Changes to RHS Qualifications’ page.

Unfortunately, unit achievement cannot be transitioned over to the new qualifications. You will need to complete the remaining units in the pre-2022 qualifications before they cease.

Further guidance on the changes and last assessment dates can be found on our ‘Changes to RHS Qualifications’ page.

Yes, the new qualifications will not affect the validity of any previous achievement and these will continue to remain recognised and highly valued in industry.

Any organisation such as FE College, school, garden, private training provider etc. can deliver RHS Qualifications but they must be approved by the RHS in the first instance. Please see ‘Become an approved centre’ page for more details.

Employers can either use an approved centre or we can help you gain approval, enabling you to undertake training in-house. Please contact us for more information.

All our qualifications are regulated by The Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation (Ofqual), a government department that regulates qualifications, exams and assessments in England. You can find out more by visiting the Ofqual website.

Our Qualifications are also approved by Qualification Wales and CCEA (Northern Ireland).

The time it takes to become approved depends on a number of factors but we aim to complete your approval as quickly and thoroughly as possible. We recommend centres allocate four to six weeks before they plan to start delivering RHS Qualifications.  

No, organisations must not state they are an approved centre or advertise RHS Qualifications until formal approval has been provided by the RHS. 

Our centre fees can be found here

Approval takes place in two stages. Once we receive your application form we will provide you with secure portal access to upload supporting documentation for our desk audit (stage one). The independent desk audit checks you meet certain elements of our centre approval criteria. Upon successful completion, we will arrange a mutually convenient date for a site visit (stage two) to check onsite facilities and the remaining approval criteria are in place to deliver our qualifications.

More information on the approval process and approval criteria can be found here

Once approved, then approval will continue on an annual basis as long as the centre remains active and delivers RHS Qualifications in accordance with our regulatory conditions and approval criteria.

Centres are required to pay an annual fee to retain approval status.

Once approved, all centres are provided access to Quartz-Web, which is an online registrations and awarding system.  On this platform, centres can upload learner registrations, withdraw learners, enter for assessment and download various guidance documents.

We encourage all learners to discuss queries with the centre they are considering enrolling or enrolled with.

If you are a learner and have a query regarding an RHS Qualification which you are undertaking, please contact your centre in the first instance who will then contact RHS Qualifications on your behalf if necessary.

Approved centres will be provided with a bespoke ‘RHS Approved Centre’ logo which may be used on webpages, marketing materials etc. to promote the RHS Courses you offer.  Centres must not use the logo in a way that suggests you are approved by the RHS to offer non-RHS related qualifications/courses.

Centres (or other organisations) are not permitted to use the main brand logo.
 

Our Business Development team is always on hand to help answer any queries, simply contact us with your query.