Guides to Level 5 study
Longer answers to the questions the table cannot settle on its own: what Level 5 is equivalent to, whether it is an HND, how to pick a credit value, how top-ups work and how long 240 credits actually take. Written by the teaching team, dated, and revised when the facts change.
All guides
Diploma vs Extended Diploma: which to choose
A decision guide for the one question every Level 5 enquiry turns on. Start from your credits, not your ambition, and the answer usually writes itself.
How long a 240-credit Extended Diploma takes
The arithmetic behind total qualification time, guided learning hours and credits, worked through for a 2,400-hour Extended Diploma at different weekly paces.
How top-up degrees work after Level 5
What a top-up year is, why universities want 240 credits rather than 120, how unit mapping works, and what to ask a university before you enrol at Level 5.
Is a Level 5 diploma the same as an HND?
Same level, often the same credit value, not the same qualification. What an HND and an OTHM or Qualifi Level 5 diploma share, and where they differ.
What is a Level 5 diploma equivalent to?
Where Level 5 sits on the qualifications framework, what "second year of a degree" does and does not mean, and how 120 and 240 credits compare with an HND.
Not sure which credit value you need?
Tell us your highest qualification and we will say which of the 120-credit Diploma and the 240-credit Extended Diploma LSPM's entry criteria open to you, and how to start the application.