OTHM Qualifications · RQF Level 5
OTHM Level 5 Extended Diploma in Cyber Security
You don’t just earn this. You learn to use it, one-to-one, on your own real work.
- LevelRQF Level 5
- Total credits240
- Guided learning1,200 hours
- Units in this qualification12
Awarded by OTHM Qualifications · on the Ofqual register
Start here
See how this course maps onto your role
Ten quick questions, one per Future Fluency, asked against this qualification rather than a generic one.
About 5 minutes · No card · Nothing to commit to
What you’ll learn
What each unit actually teaches you to do
Expand your professional network and secure your career with our Advanced Programmes at OTHM Qualifications. Places are filling up fast, so hurry up!
These are the units OTHM Qualifications registers against this qualification. It is a catalogue, not a syllabus. Which of them you take depends on the combination the qualification requires, and that is set by the awarding body rather than by us. Every unit here is regulated, and every one you earn is yours to keep.
Algorithms and Data StructuresReal unit · OTHM Qualifications
What you'll be able to do
- Understand a range of essential data structures, including arrays, linked lists, stacks, queues, trees, and graphs.
- Understand algorithmic complexity and appreciate its importance in terms of time and space efficiency.
- Understand a range of algorithmic techniques, including searching, sorting, recursion, and dynamic programming.
- Write algorithms in popular programming languages, demonstrating an understanding of data structures and algorithmic techniques.
Artificial IntelligenceReal unit · OTHM Qualifications
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the principles of artificial intelligence and data-driven learning, including different AI paradigms and their applications.
- Understand the principles underlying neural network training, including backpropagation and optimisation techniques.
- Build and train neural networks using appropriate tools and techniques.
- Understand a range of generative modelling architectures and techniques in deep learning, such as GANs and VAEs.
- Understand how AI can be used for both offence and defence in the realm of cybersecurity, including examples of AI-powered attacks and defences.
Computer NetworksReal unit · OTHM Qualifications
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the core principles underpinning computer networks, including network topologies, protocols, and standards.
- Understand how various devices connect to form networks, considering different network architectures and communication methods.
- Design a computer network suited to a given setting, taking into account factors such as security, scalability, and performance requirements.
DatabasesReal unit · OTHM Qualifications
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the fundamental concepts of databases, including data models, database management systems (DBMS), and database architecture.
- Design a relational database based on user specifications, including entity-relationship diagrams (ERD) and normalisation techniques.
- Use SQL to interact with databases, including data definition language (DDL) and data manipulation language (DML) commands.
Digital ForensicsReal unit · OTHM Qualifications
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the principles of digital forensics, including the forensic process, evidence handling, and chain of custody.
- Understand the key techniques used in digital forensic investigations, including data acquisition, data analysis, and reporting.
- Conduct forensic analysis of computer systems and storage media, using appropriate tools and techniques.
- Use digital forensic techniques to verify the source and authenticity of image and video data.
- Understand the legal and ethical aspects of digital forensics, including data protection, privacy, and admissibility of evidence.
Ethical HackingReal unit · OTHM Qualifications
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the role of penetration testing in enhancing Cyber Security, including its benefits and limitations.
- Identify and assess security vulnerabilities through reconnaissance, scanning and vulnerability assessment techniques.
- Exploit security vulnerabilities in a controlled environment and report findings to help mitigate and prevent security attacks.
- Understand the legal and ethical considerations for penetration testing, including relevant laws and regulations.
Information Technology SecurityReal unit · OTHM Qualifications
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the nature of information and what is meant by information privacy, including data protection principles and regulations.
- Understand key concepts in information security, including common threats, vulnerabilities, and associated risks to information assets.
- Understand the importance of secure design principles in Cyber Security systems, including security by design and defence in depth.
- Apply cryptographic techniques to encrypt and decrypt information, ensuring confidentiality and integrity.
- Understand legal and societal issues concerning information security, including data breaches, privacy rights, and ethical considerations.
Malware AnalysisReal unit · OTHM Qualifications
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the different types of malware that exist and how they spread, including viruses, worms, Trojans, and ransomware.
- Understand how to detect malware and describe the challenges of doing so, including the use of anti-virus software and intrusion detection systems.
- Perform malware analysis to identify and understand the function of malware, using static and dynamic analysis techniques.
- Understand strategies to protect from malware and recover from attacks, including implementing security policies, patching vulnerabilities, and backing up data.
Mathematics for Computer ScienceReal unit · OTHM Qualifications
What you'll be able to do
- Understand binary and the representation of numbers in different bases, including decimal, hexadecimal, and octal.
- Understand the principles of propositional logic, set theory, and proof as applicable to computer science, including logical operators, set operations, and proof techniques.
- Understand key topics in number theory and their application in computer science, including prime numbers, modular arithmetic, and cryptography.
- Understand series and sequences and their importance in computer science, including arithmetic and geometric series, and their applications in algorithm analysis.
- Understand key topics in linear algebra, including vectors, matrices, and their applications in computer graphics and machine learning.
Operating SystemsReal unit · OTHM Qualifications
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the essential function of modern operating systems
- Understand the architecture of modern operating systems
- Understand memory management techniques used by modern operating systems
- Understand I/O management techniques used by modern operating systems
- Understand process management techniques used by modern operating systems
- Understand the principles of concurrency in operating systems
- Understand potential problems with concurrency in operating systems
- Write programs at the kernel level
Principles of Computer SystemsReal unit · OTHM Qualifications
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the architecture and key components of computer systems, including the CPU, memory, and input/output devices.
- Understand the types and functions of memory in computing systems, including RAM, ROM, and cache memory.
- Design and implement simple state machines using appropriate tools and techniques.
- Understand the fundamentals of logic circuits and gates, including AND, OR, NOT, and XOR gates.
- Understand the fundamentals of assembly language and how it relates to higher level programming languages, including instruction sets and memory addressing.
Security TestingReal unit · OTHM Qualifications
What you'll be able to do
- Understand a range of security testing methods, including their purpose, application, and limitations.
- Perform essential web application security testing, using appropriate tools and techniques.
- Perform essential mobile application security testing, using appropriate tools and techniques.
- Understand the ethical and professional standards in security testing, including data protection and confidentiality.
The honest bit
You’ve started things before
Most courses were built for a room full of people who aren’t you. A cohort moves on whether or not your week allowed it, and by the third week the thing you’re behind on becomes the reason you stop opening it.
There’s no cohort here, and no timetable to fall behind. Before anything starts, Zavmo asks when you’re sharpest and how long you can realistically sit down for, then builds the sessions around those answers. A bad fortnight changes your pace. It doesn’t put you behind.
And you only pay once you start learning. Searching and planning are free, and you can cancel any time — so the cost of finding out is an afternoon, not a year.
Your passport
Every credit is a stamp you keep
Level 5 credits are regulated. They don’t vanish when a subscription ends or a website closes. They travel to any employer, and Zavmo keeps the map of what you’ve earned and what’s next.
Each stamp is a real unit registered against this qualification.
Who’d teach you this
The Evidence Evaluator
Assessor
Helps you show what you can actually do, gathering the evidence that proves it as you learn.
Meet all twelve tutorsWhere this connects
Where these credits take you
A qualification is never a dead end here. See the jobs its credits open, the national occupational standards its units map to, and the future skills they quietly build.
- Carry out digital forensic examination activities
- Carry out information security architecture activities
- Carry out web application penetration testing
- Contribute to information security testing activities
- Direct information security testing activities
- Implement Information Assurance Under Supervision
- Manage digital forensic activities
- Perform Operating System Hardening
Where this can lead
Associate Penetration Tester
Your journey starts here, learning the fundamentals of ethical hacking. With dedication and continuous learning, you can carve out a truly impactful and rewarding career, helping organisations stay one step ahead of the bad guys. It won't always be easy, but it will certainly be interesting.
See the whole journey →Showing 6 roles, drawn from 113 job records mapped to this qualification.
Skills it covers
What the job actually needs. These are the standards the units are built against, in the words employers and awarding bodies already use for the work itself.
How you’ll actually learn this
One-to-one, on your own real work
A qualification is usually something done to you: sit the class, sit the exam, hope it sticks. Here it’s the opposite. You learn it one-to-one with a companion, on your own real work, and you keep going until you can use it, not just recall it.
Applied to your work in any of these jobs
Learners will study essential data structures and algorithmic techniques, including arrays, linked lists, stacks, and trees. The unit covers algorithmic complexity and enables learners to write algorithms in popular programming languages, applying appropriate data structures effectively.
- Remember
- Understand
- Apply
- Analyse
- Evaluate
- Create
Built for OTHM Level 5 Extended Diploma in Cyber Security
12 units in this credential, in the order it lists them, awarded by OTHM Qualifications.
- Algorithms and Data Structures
- Artificial Intelligence
- Computer Networks
- Databases
- Digital Forensics
- Ethical Hacking
and 6 more in the full unit list below.
One to one, not one to many
No two people run this the same way
A course is written once and handed to everyone. This is assembled around you, and keeps changing as it learns you. Five things it reads, and what each one changes.
- Your actual work Every unit is taught against a live piece of your own work, not a worked example from a textbook.
- What you already know The first conversation finds your starting point, so you skip what you can already do and spend the time on what you cannot.
- The conditions you learn under Not a learning-styles quiz. The evidence does not support those. The dimensions the research does back, read once and used to shape the plan.
- How far you got last time It picks up mid-thought. The tutor knows what you said, what you struggled with, and what it asked you to try.
- Which tutor suits the moment Twelve of them, each for a different kind of thinking. The one who walks you through a first idea is not the one who stress-tests it.
See how you learn, free. Eight questions, no sign-up. A directional taster; the diagnostic inside Zavmo goes deeper and keeps adapting.
Why it sticks
Most courses stop at remembering
There’s a well-known ladder of how deeply you learn something, called Bloom’s Taxonomy. Most courses get you up the first two rungs: you remember some facts, you pass a test, you forget it. Real skill lives at the top. Judging, deciding, creating. And this isn’t a generic ladder: every rung has a named Zavmo tutor who walks you up it.
- 6CreateThe Creative Catalyst
- 5EvaluateThe Evidence Evaluator
- 4AnalyseThe Analyst
- 3ApplyThe Coach
- 2UnderstandThe Connector
- 1RememberThe Builder
Where most courses leave you Where Zavmo takes you
The value
Why the companion is worth £70 a month
You’re not paying for the units. They’re regulated, and the same wherever you earn them. You’re paying for the one thing that decides whether you actually get there: a companion that makes them stick, on your real work.
That is one-to-one on this qualification, every day, on the work you already do, for £70 a month. Your first module is free, so you can see the teaching before you pay for any of it. Billed monthly, cancel any time and billing stops.
Earned on your own work, taught to the top.
Everything you just read, learned one-to-one on the job you already do. Your first module is free, so you can see the teaching before you pay for any of it.
Build my plan, freeNo card. See how this qualification maps onto your role and meet the tutors who’d teach it, free. The learning begins when you subscribe. It’s £70 a month, billed monthly. Cancel any time and billing stops.