Fire Engineering

Graduates of the Micro-credential in Building Means of Escape will be well-prepared for roles within the fire safety, building compliance, and construction sectors. The skills developed in this programme are highly valued across industries focused on safety, design, and regulatory performance.

Graduates of this micro-credential will be prepared for employment or career progression in roles that involve the design, review, or management of evacuation schemes and compliance processes, including:

• Building Compliance or Fire Safety Officer, supporting councils, Building Control Authorities (BCAs), or private certifiers with inspections of escape routes, emergency lighting, and evacuation procedures.
• Fire Safety Technician or Assistant Designer, working with fire engineering consultants, system designers, or building services firms to review and document evacuation solutions.
• Facilities or Property Compliance Coordinator, managing evacuation schemes, training building occupants, and ensuring compliance with Building Warrant of Fitness and evacuation requirements.
• Health and Safety Advisor (Built Environment focus), contributing to evacuation planning, drills, and compliance documentation across large organisations, educational institutions, or healthcare facilities.

For entry to this programme, applicants are required to have: 

• NCEA Level 2; and
• A minimum total of 48 credits at Level 2 in four subjects, including mathematics; or
• Equivalent qualifications (e.g., International Baccalaureate or Cambridge); or
• Equivalent credits from appropriate trades training and/or demonstrated skills and experience.

Special Admission and Discretionary Admission are also available for applicants aged 20 and over who do not meet the general admission requirements. Contact our enrolments team to discuss your situation.

Indicative content:

• Relationship between fire safety systems and escape provisions
• The principles of human behaviour in an evacuation situation
• The different stages of the evacuation process
• ASET / RSET principles
• Occupant load of a space or a building, and using it to derive the minimum requirements for egress, using hand calculations based on simple tabulated values
• Impact that various fire safety systems can have on both RSET and ASET, and how strategically selecting fire safety systems can affect the balance to improve the level of safety in a building; behavioural response
• Requirements of F6 and F8
• Reflective and illuminated signage
• Interpretation and marking up of design drawings
• Strategies for communication of means of egress design on drawings
• Simultaneous evacuation, phased evacuation and staged evacuation
• Factors that are critical to the successful evacuation of buildings beyond the initial design, including (but not limited to) good housekeeping, display of fire action notices, regular training, and maintenance of safety systems

This micro-credential is one of three NZQA-listed fire-related micro-credentials offered by FutureSkills. It can be taken on its own, or as part of a planned pathway toward the New Zealand Diploma in Engineering (Fire Engineering).