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Do you have work experience but no qualification to prove it? This is for you

Soraya Mohamedi · Employment Area Coordinator, Ubuntu Canarias · 4 min read

Some people have worked for years in kitchens, in care, in a warehouse or on building sites. They learned the trade by doing it, took courses or volunteered with an organisation for a long time. But they have no official qualification that shows everything they can do.

This also happens to many migrants: they arrive with experience from their home country, have worked here without doing vocational training (FP), or have learned through courses and volunteering. Having experience and being able to prove it officially are not the same thing. That is what the accreditation of professional skills is for.

What it is

It is an official procedure that recognises what you can do, even if you learned it at work, in courses or as a volunteer. What is accredited is not “having worked”, but specific skills listed in Spain’s National Catalogue of Professional Competence Standards. For example, in customer service, cooking, logistics, care, administration, maintenance, retail or hospitality.

The path is: experience → skills → assessment → official accreditation.

It may interest you if…

• You have worked for years in a kitchen, in cleaning or in care, but have no qualification.
• You learned a trade from a relative or at a company.
• You have experience from your home country and want to know if it counts here.
• You have volunteered or taken many courses without a related official qualification.

What experience or training is required

It depends on the level of the standard you want to accredit:

• Level 1: 2 years of experience with at least 1,000 hours worked, or 200 hours of training.
• Levels 2 and 3: 3 years of experience with at least 2,000 hours worked, or 300 hours of training.

The experience must be from the last 15 years and the training from the last 10. Volunteering also counts, with the same hours as work experience.

Requirements in the Canary Islands

• Spanish nationality, EU citizenship, or a valid residence permit or residence and work permit.
• Being 18 for level 1 and 20 for levels 2 and 3.

You can apply all year round, online or in person, and there are no fees. The administration has up to 6 months to decide.

Which documents to keep

Among others: DNI, NIE or passport, your Social Security work history (vida laboral), contracts, company certificates, course diplomas, your CV and, if you were a volunteer or intern, a certificate from the organisation stating the activity, dates, hours and your tasks.

Do not throw away old papers thinking they are no longer useful. The better documented your experience is, the easier it is to see what you can accredit. If you worked in another country, keep those contracts and certificates too.

How the process works

1. Application, with documents showing your experience and training.
2. Guidance: they review your history and tell you which skills you can accredit.
3. Assessment: they analyse your documents and, if needed, check in practice what you can do.
4. Accreditation: if the result is positive, you receive an official accreditation valid throughout Spain, plus guidance on the training you would still need.

Two important things

It is not a qualification. Accrediting skills does not automatically give you an FP qualification or a professional certificate. But those skills can count towards a professional certificate or an FP course, and they show you what training is missing.

It is not a recognition of foreign degrees. If you have a qualification from another country (university or vocational), you need to ask about homologation or equivalence, which is a different procedure.

Before applying

Make a list: what jobs you have done, for how long, what your tasks were, what courses or volunteering you have done and what papers you have to prove it. That makes it easier to see which skills match your experience.

Official links (in Spanish)

• Canary Islands Government – Procedure 6907: skills accreditation
• Canary Islands Government – Professional qualifications
• TodoFP – Accreditation of professional skills
• INCUAL – National Institute of Qualifications
• BOE – Royal Decree 659/2023

If you do not know where to start, write to us. At Ubuntu Canarias we provide information and guidance on resources; the assessment and decision are made by the administration.

Information checked on 7 October 2026.