Farnborough College of Technology was established in 1957, originally as a training wing of the former Royal Aircraft Establishment. Farnborough's historic links with aviation can be traced back to 1908 with the arrival of the Balloon Equipment Store, later called the Royal Aircraft Establishment and more recently the Aerospace Division of the Defence Evaluation Research Agency. The first Farnborough Air Show was in 1948, and it is now held every two years.

The College is situated in North Hampshire with very convenient motorway, railway and air connections to the rest of the country. The college has a range of in house services that are available to staff including an occupation health unit, counselling service and chaplaincy. The college also has an approved crèche on campus taking children aged three months to eight years, open from 8.30 to 17.30 Monday to Friday.

In common with most successful businesses, we depend on an extensive network of support services, which underpin the work of the College at all levels. The administration of such a large organisation is complex with separate departments for admissions, exams, finance and all other areas of college life. Our sales team establishes and maintains close links with the local and wider community. The HR department provides ongoing staff development programmes to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to stretch and develop their individual skills.

All these services work together to strengthen the College and ensure the highest quality provision for teaching and learning

As a College involved with Further and Higher Education students in a wide range of subject areas, we are all too aware of the importance of the need to balance academic learning with practical, up to date information on the realities of life in the workplace. Farnborough College of Technology has an excellent reputation for its innovation in course development, the flexibility and variety of its courses and the excellent employment record of all who leave after successfully completing a course. We currently have over 14,000 students at our modern style campus, which offers superb teaching and learning resources.

We value our close relationship with the University of Surrey, a mature and established institution, which has a justifiably high reputation. Colleagues from the College and from the University in all disciplines are forging links aimed at improving the quality of education. Joint initiatives ensure that students enrolling on programmes at Farnborough make the right career choice. Farnborough College of Technology is proud of its Accredited status awarded by the University of Surrey in January 2002.

Our college has built its reputation by carefully considering the needs of industry, staff and of students, and by energetically pursuing a dynamic policy of achievement. This is reflected in the modern style and technology of the buildings, and in our technical and learning resources. As well as taking steps to maintain and improve our physical environment, we actively promote environmental awareness in all our staff, our students and across all our academic disciplines.

The college is committed to high quality provision in its services to students and industry. We hold the national 'Investor in People' award and welcome external quality audits by a wide range of professional and government bodies. Farnborough is a centre of excellence for teaching and learning, focusing its efforts on students' academic development and welfare and on providing first class courses with a strong vocational orientation and three Centres of Vocational Excellence.

In November 2011, the College was judged to be ‘Outstanding’ by Ofsted across all of its work:

• Effectiveness of provision -  Outstanding

• Capacity to improve - Outstanding

• Achievement and standards -  Outstanding

• Quality of provision - Outstanding

• Leadership and management - Outstanding

The College continues to review its property strategy in line with the demands of modern education.  Our mission continues to ensure that our students achieve foundation, technical or higher vocational qualifications and skills which meet local and regional skills needs and allow for progression from 14+ to Higher Education