Optima Training & Consultancy Ltd 

Simon from optima was an excellent help getting set up with my Kali Linux labs. Highly recommend for anyone needing help working through labs.

The guys at Optima are fantastic. The content is up to date and delivered smoothly. I knew nothing about cyber security when I started my journey, Now I'm certified and looking to get my first job in the industry. You get out what you put in and if you're serious about gaining the knowledge and putting it in to practice Optima are 110% behind you. Support when you need it and the tools to succeed. Thank you to all the staff. Shout out to Jon Heaps, your knowledge and humour are equally impressive.

This is my second review of Optima IT Training, written one year later, and this time I can back every single word with evidence. Emails. Call logs. Recordings. If Optima wants to challenge this, they’re welcome to contact me.
After my first review, Optima publicly claimed that I “did not attend the classes.”
That statement was false. It was an attempt to discredit criticism instead of addressing it.
Here is what actually happened.
I paid £2,800 for their program. They market themselves as “different,” claiming they don’t care about money and charge high prices only to ensure commitment. That is marketing fiction. In reality, Optima is an overpriced self-study course with minimal live teaching (roughly 10–15% over 12 days) and virtually no real mentorship.
Everything meaningful I achieved, I achieved on my own.
After a full year of self-study, I became a Google Cloud Architect Certified professional—not because of Optima, but despite them. When I emailed them my certificate to show I had passed, they ignored me for nearly four months.
Four months.
During this time, they were perfectly happy to keep taking my monthly payments.
Their so-called “employment service” is nothing more than basic CV tweaking, something you can get online for £20. After waiting long enough, I requested to cancel my contract, as they had clearly failed to deliver what was promised.
Only then did Optima suddenly remember I existed.
I started receiving calls, emails, and Teams messages—non-stop. The sudden attention wasn’t about support or professionalism; it was about money about to stop.
When I finally returned the call, the tone was shocking. Instead of handling the situation professionally, the representative dismissed my request and accused me of “just complaining.” I was not complaining—I was formally requesting contract cancellation.
After about ten minutes of rude and unprofessional behavior, I told them clearly that they were being rude and that I did not want to continue the call. My cancellation request was refused.
It has now been two months, and the issue remains unresolved.
At this point, I am fully prepared to take this matter to court. I have documentation, timelines, and proof. We’ll let the facts speak.
Summary:
– Extremely overpriced
– Mostly self-study
– Minimal real teaching
– Employment support is superficial
– Ignores you until money is at risk
– Dismissive and rude when you try to leave
If you’re considering Optima IT Training, understand this clearly:
You are paying thousands to teach yourself.
I learned the hard way. Don’t repeat my mistake.

Transformative Experience with Exceptional Mentors!

Optima Training has completely exceeded my expectations! From day one, the program was structured, engaging, and laser-focused on real-world application. What truly sets Optima apart, however, are the incredible mentors—knowledgeable, supportive, and genuinely invested in your success.

Each mentor brings a wealth of industry experience, yet they remain approachable, patient, and always ready to go the extra mile. Whether it was clarifying complex concepts, offering career advice, or providing personalized feedback, their guidance made all the difference in my learning journey.

The curriculum is up-to-date, practical, and perfectly paced. I’ve gained not just skills, but confidence—and even better, a professional network I can rely on. If you’re serious about growth and want to learn from the best, Optima Training is the place to be.

Thank you to the entire team—and especially the fantastic mentors—for making this such a rewarding experience. Highly, highly recommend!

Excellent session! The instruction by @kim on AI agents via Firebase and Replit was logical, structured, and easy to digest. I walked away with a clear roadmap and the confidence to start my own project. Great job by @Maxine on the organisation—everything ran perfectly. Five stars!

Great project session with Kim, everyone engaging and enjoying the practicality side of things. Special thanks to Maxine and team for making this happen. Looking forward to the next session

Hi just got off my first project session with Kelly - it was really informative and enjoyable. Looking forward to the next one.

Excellent sessions. Instructors do a great job of explaining concepts clearly and bringing real world cloud computing scenarios; hands on projects into the learning, making everything practical and relevant.

Project session are highly engaging, well-structured and focused on real-world scenarios rather than just theory. Really enjoying the journey; highly recommend the course and the guidance from Kim Brook; and all instructors.

Kim is an excellent teacher and mentor. I had an amazing project session today that closely aligns with a real-world scenario. I am glad to be her student. Looking forward to more project sessions like this from optima. Thank you so Kim!

We had our first real-time project this morning and I cannot tell how useful, helpful and knowledge-acquiring was. It was good and important to understand and go through the actual team work when offering AWS solutions to clients to help us shape and adapt our thinking to the nowadays global business world requirements. Our host Kim was incredibly supportive and encouraging as usual.
Very impressed and enthusiastic for this new approach into my course.

Just got off the Project session with Kim brook. it was the most exciting and nerve racking session i have ever attended. But it was so amazing and i learnt so much about building real world solutions in AWS it was amazing got so much insight. Kim is inspirational .
Every one who is serious about their AWS journey should make the Project sessions a must

I wanted to reach out to tell you how incredible the support I received for my AWS optima online course was today.

I’m not at all confident with technology, and I called feeling really flustered about getting stuck in the course. The woman who helped me was Ruby, and she immediately put me at ease — she didn’t make me feel daft for struggling, just said "no stress, we’ll do this together." She let me explain my problem in my own words, walked me through every step slowly until I actually understood, and even helped me fix my Microsoft Teams download (something I’d been messing up for days!). She also showed me where to find the parts of the session I’d missed and ended by telling me to contact her anytime I need help.

Honestly, her kindness, patience, and professionalism turned my whole day around . I left the call feeling confident about the course for the first time. She’s a real credit to your company, and it’s because of people like Ruby that I’ll keep using continue with the course and recommending them to other students too.

Thank you for having such an amazing team member on board.

Best wishes,
Khadija kamus

Valuable engagement. All I can say to fellow students is “you are missing out big time if you are not engaging with this service”

From no IT experience to CompTIA Security+ certified thanks to the great team behind Optima giving the best training and follow up supports to students. Still moving ahead with them for my CPSA certification. Thanks Optima Training & Consultancy Ltd.

The trainers and mentors (in particular Kim, and Andrew) are all very knowledgeable and supportive, and really help you to understand the material to pass your exams. Also the project is really good as a scenario to get you to think critically about the architecture and systems.

From the beginning of the call, i was made comfortable and he was very friendly. I was made part of the process and i loved it

My experience with Optima IT’s Google Cloud programme was mixed. While the training materials and exam vouchers were provided, the recruitment support advertised as a key feature of the package was not delivered in my case.

I consistently requested structured recruitment support from July onwards, but communication was slow, fragmented, and often went unanswered. Despite completing all certifications, I did not receive the practical work, project guidance, or structured interview support that formed a major part of the sales pitch.

I eventually had to escalate my concerns through the finance provider. After reviewing all evidence, the lender concluded that there had been a partial failure in service delivery and issued a financial adjustment to my agreement.

Optima provided a partial refund following that investigation. My SAR response also arrived later than the original date they communicated, though it was eventually supplied. I appreciate the adjustment, but I do wish the advertised recruitment pathway had been delivered, as it was the primary reason I joined the programme.

Without the recruitment component, the programme did not offer the value I expected.

Dear Optima Training Team,

I am writing to submit a formal complaint regarding my enrolment experience and to request immediate cancellation of my place on the course, along with a full refund of all payments taken.

When I agreed to join the course in August, I was not informed of any 14-day cancellation period. Because this information was never provided at the time of enrolment, I was unaware such a deadline existed. I attempted to cancel on day 16, believing I was still able to do so. Only after advising your team that I no longer wished to proceed was I told about the 14-day policy for the first time.

Following my cancellation request, I received a message suggesting I should have informed you sooner, despite not being made aware of any cancellation terms. I was then instructed to contact your automated system and wait two days for an appointment. During my appointment, a staff member finally explained the cancellation policy, told me he would email me that day (which never happened), and advised me to block the payments, assuring me that doing so would stop any further charges.

After following this advice, my card was blocked, and initially this worked — no payments were taken. However, over the past two months, Optima has begun withdrawing money again by changing the merchant ID, allowing payments to be taken despite my card being blocked. A total of £200 has been taken during this period, and I now have another payment due this week which I have never authorised.

This is extremely concerning and unacceptable. Payments have continued even after:
• I cancelled the course,
• I was advised by your staff that blocking payments would resolve the issue,
• I never signed the digital agreement, and
• My bank blocked the card used for the original transactions.

This situation has caused significant stress and financial harm. It is unreasonable for Optima to enforce a cancellation policy that was never communicated and to continue withdrawing money using different merchant IDs after being explicitly informed that I do not wish to continue.

Very nice and always very helpful. Any queries at all are treated with kindness and respect and usually concluded in the one phone call. Really great service.

I have been an Optima student for over a year now. I completed the AWS Solutions Architect course taught by Andrew Bel Dean, with Kim Brook as my mentor. I cannot express enough how grateful I am for the constant help and support Kim has provided throughout my journey.

I am proud to say that I am now an AWS Certified Solutions Architect. The Optima team has stood by me every step of the way and supported me in every possible manner. I am currently studying Machine Learning and AI with them. It is an intense course, but Kim continues to go above and beyond to ensure all of us succeed.

I highly recommend Optima to anyone who is ready to take the next step in their learning path. The journey is not easy, but Optima makes it achievable.

Thank you so much to the entire Optima team. I truly appreciate all the support.