Secretary

You may find it useful to take a course in administration or secretarial skills. Colleges offer full-time and part-time courses, including awards, certificates and diplomas. Useful subjects include:

• business administration
• typing
• audio transcription
• computer skills
• shorthand

A common way to become a secretary is to do a business administrator advanced apprenticeship.

Entry requirements

You'll usually need:

• 5 GCSEs at grades 9 to 4 (A* to C), or equivalent, including English and maths, for an advanced apprenticeship

More Information

• equivalent entry requirements
• guide to apprenticeships

You could start as an administration assistant and work towards this role.

Employers may be more interested in your computer, telephone and office skills than your formal qualifications, although you may be expected to have some GCSEs at grades 9 to 4 (A* to C) including English.

Volunteering, for example with a charity, could help you to get some relevant experience. It's a good way of developing IT and office skills that are valued by employers.

You could apply directly if you've got relevant skills and experience from working in an office.

You could also do a temping job to get into this kind of role. Temporary jobs can help you to build up your experience and could lead to permanent employment.

Further information

You can find out more about becoming a secretary from The Institute of Administrative Management.

You'll need:

• administration skills
• to be thorough and pay attention to detail
• the ability to work well with others
• the ability to work on your own
• sensitivity and understanding
• to be flexible and open to change
• excellent verbal communication skills
• customer service skills
• to be able to use a computer and the main software packages competently

In your day-to-day tasks you could:

• be the first point of contact for visitors, phone calls and emails
• arrange meetings and take minutes
• manage an individual or team diary and make travel arrangements
• produce letters, reports, spreadsheets and invoices
• update records on IT systems
• photocopy, print and file documents
• handle confidential information

You could work in an office.