Requirements

Senior fire officer - requirements

As a senior fire officer, you’ll use your excellent communication and organisational skills to manage operational teams and coordinate an area or station. Learn more about a career in a senior fire officer role, find out what it involves and what you’ll need to study and do to get a job.

Know what you'll need to land a job below.

What qualifications do you need to be a senior fire officer?

A degree in any subject will help but a relevant one in a social science will prove most useful. Subjects to consider include:

Please note this is a beta version. We'll continue to improve our suggestions here so that we show you the most relevant subjects.

Do you need a postgraduate qualification to be a senior fire officer?

Although it’s not essential to do a postgraduate course, it can help develop your skills and increase your career opportunities.

Examples of taught master’s and research degrees at postgraduate level include:

Advanced structural engineering
Disaster management
Emergency management
Fire and rescue service management
Fire safety engineering
Fire scene investigation

What skills do you need to be a senior fire officer?

As well as having excellent fire management and safety knowledge, you’ll need to be good at motivating and managing a team, thinking quickly and multi-tasking.

Hard skills usually include:

Auditing
Finance
Fire safety and management
Key performance indicators
Risk analysis
Risk management
Social work

Soft skills include:

Empathy
Innovation
Investigation
Leadership
Management
Operations
Planning
Teamwork

Do you need work experience to be a senior fire officer?

It's not possible to gain work experience for entry-level roles in the fire service due to various health and safety reasons but you'll usually need substantial on the job experience before getting a senior officer role.