UK automation certificate/qualifications

Hi,

Non technical question... I've worked for the same company for the last 25 years and will be being made redundant within the next 18months I'm currently employed as an instrumentation controls technician and am competent working with various PLC/scada systems, however, I have no formal qualifications (other than HNC in electrical/electronic engineering back in '95). I'd like to continue working in automation/process control but with a shift away from the production environment and more of a focus on hardware/software functional design,installation and commissioning (a systems integrator/project engineering type role) and wondered if there are any recognised certification/formal qualifications in relation to our world of automation...i'm thinking of say ISA-88 batch processing standards and ISA84 safety-related controls or iec-61511 standards (sil assignments and SIF competence) I'm not clear about what courses to take advantage of while i'm still in full-time employment! any advice would be greatly appreciated ...and apolgies for the extremely long message

cheers

There probably are plenty of ISA certifications you could get but at this point the UK market is desperate for automation control engineers.
Your HNC and experience will open as many doors as you want.

I talk to recruiters regularly. They started by asking me why they were not getting applications for these types of jobs. It transpired that the two main points were a shortage of people in this sector and the ridiculously low salaries they were offering.

They have addressed the second point and things are starting to move again but the shortage still continues. It's a bull market for automation engineers right now and looks likely to continue.