An apprenticeship qualification as a florist with a Federal Certificate of Competence (or equivalent) is required to take the professional examination (BP), as well as at least two years of professional experience after completing the apprenticeship.

As part of continuing education, further training to become a florist FPE, you will acquire practical and theoretical knowledge relevant to your profession on the topics of floral design, design, colors, botany and botany, materials and technology, cultural history, architectural styles, room recording and design. In addition, there is business management knowledge such as marketing, supply, accounting, product presentation, customer contact, store design, inventory, costing and customer service, as well as business organization knowledge of stock management, process organization and quality management. Employee management is also part of this further training in floristry, which includes team development, leadership, conflict resolution, communication and continuing education, further training.

You should have a keen interest in plants, nature and, of course, flowers, but you are not expected to have extensive knowledge of floristry when you start an apprenticeship as a florist with an Federal VET Certificate or Federal VET Diploma. Learning everything you need for this profession is the task of the apprenticeship, for which you have two or three years. So if you know very little about flowers or plants before you start your apprenticeship, that's not a bad thing, because after all, that's why you're doing the apprenticeship.

You will attend and complete a course in preparation for the professional examination (BP) as a florist with a federal certificate and a vocational trainer course. You then take the professional examination, which consists of three parts and covers floral design, professional knowledge and business management. The complete examination takes a total of 16 to 19 hours and must be passed in order to obtain the federal certificate.

The continuing education, further training to become a florist with a Federal Diploma of Higher Education takes place as block courses at some schools, which means that you take part in around nine block weeks spread over a year. It is therefore not possible to work 100% full-time during this time. It is best to discuss this directly with your line manager and ask whether unpaid leave, offsetting against overtime or another solution can be found for this further training.