UK

OTHM Qualifications · RQF Level 5

OTHM Level 5 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 credits120
  • Guided learning600 hours
  • Units in this qualification6

Awarded by OTHM Qualifications · on the Ofqual register

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What you’ll learn

What each unit actually teaches you to do

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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.

Artificial IntelligenceReal unit · OTHM Qualifications
This unit introduces learners to the principles of artificial intelligence and data-driven learning, focusing on neural network training and generative modelling techniques. You'll learn to build and train neural networks and understand AI applications across various domains.

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.
DatabasesReal unit · OTHM Qualifications
You'll gain an understanding of fundamental database concepts, including data models, database management systems, and architectures. The unit develops skills in designing relational databases based on user requirements and using SQL to interact with databases effectively.

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
This unit provides learners with knowledge of digital forensics principles and investigative techniques, including evidence handling and chain of custody. You'll conduct forensic analysis of computer systems and storage media, and verify the authenticity of digital images and videos.

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
You'll explore the role of penetration testing in cyber security, acquiring skills to identify, assess, and exploit security vulnerabilities through reconnaissance and scanning techniques. The unit emphasises ethical and legal considerations in controlled penetration testing environments.

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.
Malware AnalysisReal unit · OTHM Qualifications
You'll study different types of malware, their characteristics, and methods of spread. The unit develops skills in malware detection and analysis using static and dynamic techniques, alongside strategies for protection and recovery from malware attacks.

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.
Security TestingReal unit · OTHM Qualifications
This unit covers a range of security testing methods, including web and mobile application testing. You'll perform essential security tests using appropriate tools and techniques while adhering to ethical and professional standards in security testing practice.

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.

Artificial IntelligenceDatabasesDigital ForensicsEthical HackingMalware AnalysisSecurity Testing

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 tutors

Where 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.

See Your Progress GrowIllustration
OTHM Level 5 Diploma in Cyber Security
  • Carry out digital forensic examination activities
  • Carry out web application penetration testing
  • Contribute to information security testing activities
  • Direct information security testing activities
  • Manage digital forensic activities
  • Plan Penetration Tests
This is your Mind Palace on learn.zavmo.ai. Every skill above comes from this role's own record, not an example borrowed from another job. A node lights up when you evidence it, and what you build stays yours between jobs. That is the part a course cannot do.

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 →
Opens the roleAssociate Penetration TesterOne of the jobs this qualification is a route into · 1 near-identical record folded inSee the role →Opens the rolePenetration Testing SpecialistOne of the jobs this qualification is a route intoSee the role →Opens the rolePenetration TesterOne of the jobs this qualification is a route into · 1 near-identical record folded inSee the role →Opens the roleSenior Penetration TesterOne of the jobs this qualification is a route into · 1 near-identical record folded inSee the role →Opens the roleRegional Penetration TesterOne of the jobs this qualification is a route intoSee the role →Opens the roleAssociate Database AdministratorOne of the jobs this qualification is a route intoSee the role →Future FluencyAll ten future skillsSee how every unit is contextualised by the tenExplore →

Showing 6 roles, drawn from 83 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.

Carry out digital forensic examination activitiesCarry out web application penetration testingContribute to information security testing activitiesDirect information security testing activitiesManage digital forensic activitiesPlan Penetration Tests

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.

One-to-one, on your real workNo lectures, no past-papers. Every unit is practised on the actual tasks your job throws at you, a tutor beside you, not a video in front of you.
Taught to the top, not the testMost courses stop at remembering. Your companion keeps climbing: analysing, judging, creating. That’s the part a machine can’t do for you.
Credits you keep, a map that continuesEvery unit is regulated and yours for good. The day you finish, Zavmo already knows the next role your new credits open.
Artificial IntelligenceLevel 5

Applied to your work in any of these jobs

Which job do you mean?
Associate Penetration TesterPenetration Testing SpecialistPenetration TesterSenior Penetration TesterRegional Penetration TesterAssociate Database Administrator

This unit introduces learners to the principles of artificial intelligence and data-driven learning, focusing on neural network training and generative modelling techniques. Learners will develop skills to build and train neural networks and understand AI applications across various domains.

How the thinking builds
  1. Remember
  2. Understand
  3. Apply
  4. Analyse
  5. Evaluate
  6. Create
An illustration of a Zavmo lesson, built from this role’s own route. The unit, its objective and every criterion above are the awarding body’s own words, not an example.
Your PlanIllustration

Built for OTHM Level 5 Diploma in Cyber Security

6 units in this credential, in the order it lists them, awarded by OTHM Qualifications.

  1. Artificial Intelligence
  2. Databases
  3. Digital Forensics
  4. Ethical Hacking
  5. Malware Analysis
  6. Security Testing
These are the real units of this credential, in its own order. Nothing here is marked done, because this plan has not been started by anyone yet. Yours would fill in as you go.

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.

  1. Your actual work Every unit is taught against a live piece of your own work, not a worked example from a textbook.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.

  1. 6CreateThe Creative Catalyst
  2. 5EvaluateThe Evidence Evaluator
  3. 4AnalyseThe Analyst
  4. 3ApplyThe Coach
  5. 2UnderstandThe Connector
  6. 1RememberThe Builder

Where most courses leave you Where Zavmo takes you

Why this matters: AI can already remember and understand for you. What it can’t do is take your real problem and judge the right call. So the only learning worth paying for is the learning that takes you to the top. That’s exactly what a tutor doing it with you, on your real work, is for.

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, free

No 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.