Dive Qualifications

Most of the Main Dive training organisations qualifications can be separated into roughly 5 main levels of qualifications
Level 1: Personal dive qualifications so you can dive safely
Level 2: More advanced personal qualifications e.g. Advanced and rescue
Level 3: Speciality courses. Everything from photography to cave diving etc. NB many of these can be taken at any stage after you have received your level one qualification
Level 4: First step in being able to safely lead others diving (who can already dive) e.g. Dive master
Level 5: Instructor. To be able to teach others to Dive

Below is examples of the 'pathways' offered by PADI

PADI:

Open water
Advanced Open Water
Speciality courses (e.g. Boast driver, Boat handler, Compressor awareness, Coral Reef conservation, Deep diver, Digital underwater photographer, DPV diver, Drift diver, Drysuit diver, enriched air diver, equipment specialist, night diver, oxygen first aid, peak performance buoyancy, Project AWARE, search & recovery diver, SMB diver, Sunto computer assisted diving, turtle conservation, Underwater photographer, Underwater navigator, wreck diver)
Rescue diver
Dive master
Open Water Scuba Instructor/assistant instructor
Speciality Instructor
Master Scuba Diver Trainer
IDC Staff instructor
Master Instructor
Course Director

Qualification cross-overs between the main Dive Training organisations

Most of the agencies have a 'Crossover' system to compare similar training in order to give credit for training and qualifications already carried out with another agency.  This table is to give you an idea of how the different qualification 'match up'. However, Changes may occur  as dive training changes over the years, so we suggest that if you are at all uncertain please check with the relevant training organisation.