A finance degree costs years of your life and tens of thousands of pounds, and still never puts you on a trading floor. We rebuilt the pathway from scratch: accredited qualifications, real floors, real capital, and mentors who trade for a living. Start with a weekend. Finish qualified.
Accredited · taught live · open to complete beginners · available worldwide
Three years and £29,370 in tuition alone before living costs. You graduate with theory, a debt, and still no time on a live trading floor. Markets are taught from textbooks written years earlier.
Requires the degree first, then survives on connections and luck. Thousands of applicants per seat, gatekept by background rather than ability. Most people never get an interview, let alone a desk.
Free, endless, and unstructured. No syllabus, no assessment, no accreditation, and no one accountable when the "guru" is wrong. The market becomes your tutor, and it charges by the mistake.
Come Learn Forex took the structure of professional education, accredited levels, real assessment, recognised certificates, and welded it to the reality of trading: live floors, live capital, and mentors who trade every day. No degree required. No gatekeepers. No three-year detour.
Plenty of people start trading because it looks like fast money. Most build on weak foundations, and a few years of losses later they crumble, often past the point where going back to college or university feels realistic. That is the route we are replacing. If trading is what you love, train like it matters: finish with a real, recognised qualification and a pathway into trading and finance, so the education counts even if trading does not work out. A proper plan, with a proper backup built in.
Real qualifications with real assessment, from Level 2 upwards, not certificates of attendance.
Six floors across four countries. You learn where trading actually happens, in person or live online.
Trade your own account and pursue funded public capital. Theory becomes practice from month one.
Taught by senior traders and the founder, people whose own capital is on the line daily.
Same ambition, same starting line, two different pathways. This is what the next three years look like on each.
All figures and timelines on this page are estimates for illustration only and will vary by person, provider, pace and pricing at the time; nothing here is a promise. Timeline compares a standard three-year English degree at the 2026/27 tuition cap with the Level 2, Level 3 and Level 5 route; Level 5 and CISI preparation launch soon. Graduate timing assumes CISI examinations taken during the first year of employment; the examinations are open entry, and ACSI membership follows on application to the CISI. CISI examination fees apply equally on both routes. Education cost comparison only, not a statement about trading income or outcomes.
Every level is a real qualification. Start as a complete beginner at Level 2 and climb towards institutional standard, with the higher rungs arriving soon. We are the first trading institution to have its own proprietary trading concepts, frameworks, strategies and learning content approved by a UK awarding body, one of the country's largest: not generic, dated content, but our own method, examined to a recognised standard.
Two days, taught live, all levels welcome. £120 all-in: two days, the exam, your certificate, plus a month of Stargate and webinars.
Four months of live mentorship on the floors or online. The professional standard, finished with a diploma.
A regulated Level 5 diploma, the academic equivalent of a foundation degree, without the three-year detour.
Structured preparation for the CISI Level 3 Certificate; passing qualifies you to apply for ACSI membership of the Chartered Institute.
Postgraduate-level depth for professional and institutional careers, once you hold the letters.
Already trading your own proven strategy? You can step from Level 2 straight to Level 5 when it launches, skipping the mentorship. See the two routes below.
The whole pathway splits on one question. Trade your own capital and funded prop-firm capital, and no licence is required by law. Touch public money, and you enter regulated territory. We built a track for each.
Prop firms fund traders through simulated evaluations backed by their own corporate capital, not public deposits, so no government licence is required. What is required is skill: passing evaluations without breaking drawdown rules.
The moment you manage public investor money, hedge fund assets or client portfolios, the law changes: you need a recognised regulatory qualification under bodies like the UK's financial regulator.
Both end at the same place: the Level 5 Diploma in Financial Trading, the CISI examinations, and ACSI status. Which one is yours depends on a single question: do you already have a proven trading strategy?
For beginners and traders who want the CLF method end to end. The Level 3 mentorship builds and proves your strategy live before you step up.
Already trading a proven strategy of your own? You do not need the Level 3 mentorship. Solidify your foundation at Level 2, then step straight to Level 5.
Level 2 is £120 all-in: training, exam, certificate, a 30-day Stargate trial and two live webinars a week. Level 3 from £4,400 with a senior trader, £7,500 with the founder; live pricing on the Level 3 page. Level 5 price is projected ahead of launch and may change. CISI examinations are open entry and their fees are set by the CISI and paid separately. ACSI membership is granted on application to the CISI after passing a qualifying examination, including its ethics assessment. Totals are estimates for guidance, not quotes.
Finish a three-year finance degree at a top university and you still cannot legally manage client money or trade derivatives in the UK. Your first employer will sit you down, in your first year on the job, to study for the CISI exams you could have already passed. The exams themselves are open entry; what takes years is becoming someone who deserves to pass them. We build the trader first, then add the letters.
The full CLF-to-CISI career pathway, from your first weekend to the industry licence, is estimated at from £8,020 in qualifications (or around £3,620 if you already trade your own strategy), plus CISI examination fees, in roughly 7 to 8 months, with exact costs and timings varying by person and pace. The traditional route costs £29,370 in tuition alone, takes three years, and still leaves the licence to do afterwards.
Level 5 and CISI preparation are launching soon; figures shown are projected full-pathway costs. In North America the market leans on its own FINRA examinations instead. Education cost comparison only, not a statement about employment or income outcomes.
Traditional route figures based on the 2026/27 English undergraduate tuition cap of £9,790 per year over a three-year degree, excluding living costs. CLF figure: Level 2 full deal (£120) plus Level 3 with a senior trader (£4,400).
Qualification for qualification, the CLF pathway costs a fraction of the traditional route, and gives you back the years.
Illustrative, estimated comparisons of education costs only; actual figures vary by person, provider and year. UK figure: £29,370 (three years at the 2026/27 English tuition cap of £9,790) minus the £4,520 Level 2 + Level 3 route with a senior trader. International figure: circa £22,000 per year UCAS guide estimate over three years (£66,000), minus the same route. Continuing to the full licence route (from £8,020) still saves £21,350 against UK tuition alone, before the graduate has paid for their CISI exams. Living costs excluded throughout. Not a statement about trading income or outcomes.
Every level is delivered live, in person on our trading floors in London, New York, Dubai and Kuala Lumpur, or live online from anywhere in the world. Same mentors, same sessions, same qualification, whichever chair you sit in.
We will be honest about the one thing universities still do better: campus recruitment. Global banks visit top campuses to hire. On our pathway, you open doors yourself, with a licence and letters they cannot ignore. Here is the honest split.
Focus entirely on the Level 2 and Level 3 track. Prop-firm capital needs no licence, only proven skill, so bypassing the CISI entirely saves you time and money. This track is live today.
Start with Level 2 · £120Complete the CLF route to Level 5, then the CISI and ACSI designation. Two roads there: Level 2, 3 and 5 if you are building from zero, or Level 2 straight to Level 5 if you already have your own strategy. Start now so you are ready when Level 5 launches.
Honestly? That world still runs on the traditional university degree paired with the CFA, a multi-year academic route into deep corporate analysis. If that is the dream, we will not pretend otherwise. For everything else, we built this.
Every qualified trader in our community started exactly here. Two days, taught live, no experience needed.