Human Factors is becoming ever more recognised as a professional discipline. That said, there are relatively few professional qualifications. Human Factors personnel generally learn specific skills sets as part of training on the job. However, certain educational backgrounds, such as psychology, science and behavioural science, are particularly relevant to human factors work and there are also a every increasing number of academic courses devoted to different areas of the subject, including:

·         MSc in Human Factors and Ergonomics

·         MSc in Human-Computer Interaction with Ergonomics

·         BSc (Hons) in Ergonomics

·         MSc in Ergonomics

·         BSc in Psychology with Occupational Psychology

·         MSc in Occupational Psychology

·         MSc in Industrial Psychology

Such courses are offered by a wide range of different universities. Loughborough is worthy of particular mention as  it has a very good reputations in this highly specialist area. For more information, visit www.lboro.ac.uk

Aside from academic qualifications, human factors professionals are often members of a number of specific institutes. For more information, click on the links above.

• Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES)
• Ergonomics Society
• British Psychological Society (BPS)
• Usability Professional Association (UPA)
• British Computer Society (BCS)