What’s Covered in the Level 5 Diploma in Fire Risk Assessment (Advanced)

The ProQual Level 5 Diploma in Fire Risk Assessment covers four mandatory units. You must achieve all four to gain the Diploma. The qualification is designed for assessors who need to lead fire risk assessment activity in high risk buildings, and it aligns to the intermediate and advanced competence expectations set out in BS 8674:2025.

1. Undertaking a Fire Risk Assessment for High Risk Buildings

This unit develops your ability to plan, lead, and report a fire risk assessment for a high risk building.

You learn how to prepare the documents and evidence needed to support a structured assessment, including what you need to inspect and why it matters. You focus on building features that drive outcomes, such as fire doors, compartmentation, and external wall construction.

You then complete a simulated fire risk assessment using recognised methodologies. The emphasis sits on defensible process. You must show how you identify hazards, evaluate risk, and select control measures that either achieve compliance or reduce risk to a tolerable level.

A key requirement is decision making on intolerable risk. You must show that you can recognise when conditions demand urgent action and produce an immediate action plan that protects life.

You also develop your ability to communicate outcomes. You learn how to write clear reports, produce action plans that people can follow, and brief different audiences so your recommendations lead to action, not delay.

2. Managing the Risk of Fire in High Risk Buildings

This unit strengthens your judgement in complex buildings where cost, occupancy, management capability, and technical risk collide.

You learn how social, economic, and business factors affect fire safety decisions. That includes what drives non compliance, where control measures fail in practice, and how you set priorities when constraints limit what can be done immediately.

A major theme is external wall systems. You learn how to evaluate different forms of construction, identify fire spread risk, and decide when the external wall risk becomes significant enough to demand deeper appraisal.

You also learn how to identify when life safety risk becomes intolerable to the point that evacuation becomes necessary. This pushes you to make clear, evidence based decisions when the consequences are high.

You then move into fire strategy thinking. You learn how to evaluate the principles behind fire strategies, how active and passive systems interact, and what to do when you cannot rely on standard guidance. This includes presenting an engineered solution when that is the only viable route.

3. Advanced Fire Risk Assessment

This unit focuses on leading the production of advanced fire risk assessments for high risk buildings.

You learn how to analyse complex information and apply research and technical resources to your assessment and reporting. You also learn how to resolve difficult risk situations without losing control of the legal basis, the risk basis, and the practical delivery pathway.

This unit pushes you beyond description. You must show you can justify. You must show your reasoning. You must show why your recommendations match the risk.

You also build the skills needed to influence decision making. High risk assessments often fail at the point of implementation. This unit strengthens how you present outcomes so dutyholders understand what to do next and why it matters.

4. Professional Development as an Advanced Fire Risk Assessor

This unit covers how you keep your competence current and credible at advanced level.

You learn how to review your own competence honestly, identify gaps, and build a structured development plan. You also learn how to maintain specialist knowledge, plan learning activities, and access opportunities that keep your experience relevant to high risk work.

The unit also supports the step into leadership. You identify opportunities to support and mentor less experienced assessors, and you develop habits that help you contribute to better practice across your organisation or network.