How long a 240-credit Extended Diploma takes

Duration is the figure people most want and the one awarding bodies do not publish. What they publish instead is hours. This guide explains the three numbers you will see against every programme on this site and shows how to turn them into a realistic timetable for yourself.

Three numbers, and what each measures

Credits. One credit is ten notional hours of learning. An Extended Diploma is 240 credits, so 2,400 notional hours.

Total qualification time (TQT). The awarding body's estimate of the total hours a typical learner needs to achieve the qualification, including taught time, independent study, research, writing assignments and assessment. For OTHM's Extended Diplomas it is 2,400 hours, consistent with the credit value. For its 120-credit Diplomas it is 1,200.

Guided learning hours (GLH). The part of TQT that involves a tutor: lectures, seminars, tutorials, supervised online sessions, feedback meetings. OTHM sets 1,200 GLH for its Extended Diplomas and between 360 and 600 for its Level 5 Diplomas depending on subject. The rest of TQT is your own time.

Qualifi does not publish TQT or GLH on its programme web pages, which is why those columns show a dash for Qualifi programmes. The specification document states them; ask us for it.

Why LSPM's "duration" is a different thing

TQT is a learning-hours figure. A duration in months is TQT divided by the hours per week you can give it, with allowance for breaks, feedback turnaround and resubmissions. Two learners on the same programme with the same TQT can legitimately take different lengths of time, which is why centres publish "standard" or "typical" durations rather than fixed ones, and why this site shows LSPM's duration only once the admissions team has confirmed it.

The arithmetic for 2,400 hours

Take an OTHM Extended Diploma at 2,400 TQT. Ignore holidays for a moment.

• At 40 hours a week (full-time study, nothing else): 60 weeks, about 14 months.
• At 30 hours a week: 80 weeks, roughly 18 months.
• At 20 hours a week (a substantial part-time commitment alongside work): 120 weeks, about 28 months.
• At 15 hours a week: 160 weeks, just over three years.
• At 10 hours a week: 240 weeks, four and a half years.

Now add reality. Most learners take some weeks off across a year; assignments come back with feedback that may require a resubmission; life intervenes. A working rule is to add 15 to 20 per cent to the raw figure. So a 20-hour-a-week learner should plan for something nearer 32 to 34 months than 28, and a 30-hour-a-week learner for about 21 months rather than 18.

The same arithmetic for 1,200 hours

A 120-credit Level 5 Diploma at 1,200 TQT halves every figure above: 30 weeks at 40 hours, 60 weeks at 20 hours, 80 weeks at 15. Add the same allowance. This is the comparison to make when weighing a Diploma against an Extended Diploma: not "which is longer" (the Extended Diploma, obviously) but "given my available hours, when does each one finish, and does the Extended Diploma's timeline still work for the university intake or job change in mind?"

Guided hours set a floor on pace

GLH is the part of the programme the centre schedules. If a centre delivers 1,200 guided hours across an Extended Diploma through, say, six hours of live or scheduled sessions a week, that alone is 200 weeks, which is nearly four years, and is the reason many centres do not deliver all guided hours as live sessions. Recorded content, structured online activities and feedback all count as guided learning. When you ask a centre about duration, ask how the guided hours are delivered; the answer tells you whether their standard duration is achievable or aspirational.

Worked example: fitting a top-up intake

Suppose you want to start a university final year in the September of 2029, and the university needs your certificate by late August. Certification typically follows the centre's final mark submission by some weeks, so plan to submit your last assignment by May 2029. If you start an Extended Diploma in January 2027, that gives you about 28 months of study. At 2,400 hours plus a 15 per cent allowance, you need about 2,760 hours in 121 weeks: roughly 23 hours a week. If you can give 23 hours a week consistently, the plan works. If you can give 15, it does not, and the honest choices are a later intake or a different starting point.

What to do with this

Before you enquire, decide how many hours a week you can realistically study, every week, for the whole period. Bring that number to the conversation. We can then tell you whether the programme you are considering fits your timeline, and if it does not, which one does. That is a far better conversation than one that starts with "how long does it take?", to which the only honest answer is "that depends on you, and here is how".