Imass offers Autodesk's Professional Certification programme

Imass business development director Colin Watson says: "The new qualification will be an excellent way for CAD professionals to further their individual careers and also for design teams to promote themselves to potential clients, validating their skills and experience. Certification will also assist employers in maintaining draughting standards.

"The industry has needed a consistent way to measure ability for a long time; we believe this new certification will become a benchmark achievement of value to engineers and their employers alike."

Initially certification will be available at two levels - that of Autodesk Certified Associate and Autodesk Certified Professional. In addition, there are plans to launch an Autodesk Certified Expert certification in the near future. The certification will be available for the 2008 and 2009 versions of AutoCAD, Autodesk Inventor and across a range of other Autodesk software products.