One of the most important findings of the AutoCredify Good Practice Mapping is that the three pilot countries are not starting from scratch. Spain, Finland, and Portugal each have training systems with genuine strengths: modular qualification architectures, nationally recognised standards, industry-driven certification schemes, and committed providers with real expertise in automotive maintenance and repair. The task ahead is not to build from zero, but to connect, strengthen, and elevate what already exists.
This article offers a tour of the practices identified through AutoCredify’s mapping exercise in each country, and is honest about both what works well and where the gaps remain.
Spain: Strong Foundations
Spain has the biggest variety of short-course training markets in Europe for electric vehicle and automotive technology skills. The mapping identified 60 relevant practices in Spain alone, reflecting a dynamic landscape of public VET provision, private training companies, and industry-led certification.
The most significant example is the FPCAT-UPC Micro-credentials in Electromobility programme developed collaboratively in Catalonia. These are university-led micro-credentials of 3 to 6 ECTS credits, with modular design, formal summative assessment, digital issuance, and clear stackability into broader qualification pathways. They are explicitly aligned with the EU approach to micro-credentials and address electromobility competences with strong green transition relevance. This practice stands out in the Spanish landscape precisely because it brings together the features that most short courses lack: structured assessment, documented quality assurance, and digital verifiability.
A second important pillar is Spain’s National Catalogue of Training Specialties (Catálogo de Especialidades Formativas), the public framework governing continuing vocational education and training. Its nationally defined curricula and regular updates with industry input provide a stable governance anchor for a large volume of publicly funded short training. However, the modules within this system are not yet systematically recognised as micro-credentials, lack explicit stackability rules, and are not issued in digitally verifiable formats. They represent what the report describes as a “proto-micro-credential infrastructure”: well-built foundations that require targeted upgrades rather than wholesale redesign.
Perhaps the example from Spain, is the use of DGUV-aligned High-Voltage Safety Certifications delivered by providers such as TÜV Rheinland. These certifications are anchored in a recognised international standard for electrical safety in automotive contexts, employ rigorous competence-based assessment, and carry high employer trust. Crucially, a 2023-2024 programme in Navarre went a step further by enrolling VET teachers in the same three-level certification pathway, certifying them against the same performance and safety standards applied to technicians in industry. This “dual anchoring” model, where pedagogical responsibility sits with the public VET system and technical validation is anchored in industry certification, is one of the most replicable quality assurance mechanisms identified across the entire mapping.
OEM-led training from manufacturers including Ford, Volkswagen, and Toyota rounds out the Spanish picture. These programmes are highly relevant to connected vehicle maintenance, competence-based in their assessment, and well-funded through brand-specific ecosystems. Their main limitation is low transferability: the credentials are brand-specific and not linked to public qualification frameworks, which limits their value as portable signals in the wider labour market.
The overall picture in Spain is one of substantial activity and strong building blocks, held back by fragmented labelling, limited digital issuance, and weak interoperability between the formal VET world and the industry certification world.
Finland: Standards-based Strength, Emerging Micro-credential Awareness
Finland’s VET system is widely regarded as one of the most coherent and competence-based in Europe, yet the country does not yet systematically use the term “micro-credential” in national legislation. The mapping found that Finland’s strengths lie predominantly in its safety-standards infrastructure and its modular VET architecture, both of which already embody many micro-credential principles in practice.
The SFS 6002 Electrical Safety Training standard is a significant single practice identified in Finland. It is a mandatory national standard for anyone working on electrical systems, with formal knowledge assessment and a strong quality assurance basis rooted in the standard itself. For the automotive sector, SFS 6002 provides a legally recognised, trusted, and regularly updated framework for certifying competence in electrical safety, including for high-voltage vehicle systems. Its governance legitimacy is exceptionally high; its limitation is that assessment practices can still vary between providers, and it is not yet linked to EU-level digital credential infrastructure or explicit micro-credential descriptors.
Complementing this is the Live Working Certification for High-Voltage Batteries, a more specialised certification requiring hands-on competence demonstration for technicians working on live battery components. This practice illustrates the kind of performance-based, supervision-intensive assessment model that is essential in safety-critical domains. Together with SFS 6002, it forms the core of a standards-based safety credentialing ecosystem that AutoCredify can build upon.
Within the formal VET system, the Optional Unit on Maintenance Work on High-Voltage Vehicles represents a nationally governed, publicly funded modular unit with clear occupational relevance and formal VET assessment. It sits within Finland’s competence-based VET framework and demonstrates how safety-critical EV content can be integrated into formal pathways. The challenge is that this unit remains optional rather than mandatory in automotive VET programmes, and its connection to industry safety standards and digital credential systems is not yet formalised.
OEM diagnostic and portal training from Volvo, Mercedes, and Toyota is also present in Finland, targeting the digital skills dimension of automotive maintenance: connected vehicle interfaces, manufacturer-specific diagnostic platforms, and data-driven fault analysis. These programmes are highly relevant but, like their equivalents in Spain, remain brand-specific and poorly linked to public qualification frameworks.
Finland’s key asset is the legitimacy and rigour of its safety standards ecosystem. Its main challenge is the same one faced by Spain: connecting this ecosystem to EU-level digital credential infrastructure and building explicit micro-credential governance around what already, in practice, functions as a coherent competence certification system.
Portugal: Coherent Architecture, Visibility Gap
Of the three pilot countries, Portugal presents a mature environment for micro-credential implementation, even though the term “micro-credential” is not yet systematically used in national policy. The National Qualifications System (SNQ), anchored in the National Qualifications Catalogue (CNQ), already embeds several core micro-credential principles, including learning-outcomes-based design, modularisation, formal assessment, credit accumulation, and national quality assurance.
The standout example is UFCD 10862 “Diagnosis and Repair in Hybrid and Electric Vehicles”, a training unit within the CNQ architecture that already functions, in practice, as a de facto micro-credential. It has clearly defined learning outcomes, formal summative assessment, national recognition, and independent certification. Crucially, UFCDs within the CNQ are explicitly designed to be accumulated, reused, and embedded within multiple qualification pathways. This positions UFCD 10862 as a prime candidate for AutoCredify’s pilot work: it requires minimal regulatory disruption to upgrade into an EU-aligned micro-credential, needing primarily the addition of digital credential issuance and explicit European Qualifications Framework referencing.
The Specialist Technician in Automotive Mechatronics for EVs (CET, NQF Level 5) illustrates another important mechanism: what the report calls “micro-credential extraction”. While the CET qualification as a whole is not a micro-credential, its internal structure, composed of certified Units of Competence and UFCDs, means that individual units already meet many EU micro-credential criteria. These units could be re-issued as standalone or stackable micro-credentials without altering the legal status of the broader qualification. This modular extraction logic is directly relevant to how AutoCredify will design its pilots at EQF level 5.
Private sector EV and high-voltage safety certifications from providers such as CEAC and MasterD reflect the responsiveness of the Portuguese training market to industry demand. These programmes are practice-oriented and respond quickly to emerging skills needs. However, their quality assurance is uneven and often opaque, particularly regarding assessment validity and external review. Several providers operate within the DGERT accreditation framework and align informally with CNQ standards, suggesting that targeted incentives and metadata standardisation could significantly raise transparency without displacing this private provision.
ADAS calibration and digital diagnostics training from Bosch and OEMs completes the picture, with practical, tool-based competence demonstration at its core. This type of provision is technically strong but, again, sits outside formal qualification pathways.
Portugal’s overall strength is the coherence and national recognition of its CNQ/UFCD architecture. Its challenge is not structural fragmentation, but a visibility and interoperability gap: strategic alignment with Europass Digital Credentials, explicit micro-credential labelling, and clearer employer-facing communication could transform existing provision into a mature micro-credential ecosystem, particularly for EV and mechatronics pathways.
A Shared Pattern Across Three Countries
Taken together, the national mapping reveals a consistent pattern across all three pilot countries. Each has significant training activity and meaningful structural strengths, yet each also faces a version of the same core challenge: the best practices are often not connected to one another, not digitally verifiable, and not labelled or governed in ways that make their quality visible and portable across regions and borders.
The FPCAT-UPC micro-credentials in Catalonia, the SFS 6002 ecosystem in Finland, and Portugal’s UFCD architecture represent the strongest building blocks available. AutoCredify’s work in the pilots will focus on connecting these building blocks more effectively, filling the assessment and quality assurance gaps where they exist, and demonstrating how the EU micro-credential standard can be implemented in practical, sustainable ways that work for small training providers, small employers, and the technicians themselves.
These countries are not at the starting line. They are already well along a path that, with the right governance, assessment standards, and digital infrastructure, can lead to a trusted, portable, and genuinely useful micro-credential ecosystem for Europe’s automotive workforce.