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Our Beauty School

Our History 

When choosing the school that will help you achieve your career goal, it is crucial that you know and understand its history and values to ensure it will meet your requirements. Please take the time to read our history and learn more about how Ray Cochrane became one of the UK’s leading beauty aesthetics academies.

Established in 1954 by the late Mrs Ray Cochrane, our beauty school was founded based on her passion for providing the highest quality beauty training. At the time, Ray Cochrane beauty school focused only on delivering the CIDESCO training, which everyone recognised as the most prestigious beauty qualification internationally. 

In 1961, Ray Cochrane held the first CIDESCO exam in the UK, setting us apart from all the other beauty schools. Our dedication to providing the best and most up-to-date training became evident nationwide. 

Our Present

When the time came for Mrs Ray Cochrane to retire in 1986, she decided to pass her successful school over to her favourite student, Miss Baljeet Suri. Mrs Ray Cochrane knew that Baljeet would maintain the original high standards she had set for the school when founding our school, and she was right! 

During Miss Baljeet Suri’s ownership, Ray Cochrane continued expanding and became the go-to for CIDESCO training. As each CIDESCO intake runs for a year, our school’s waiting list grew until Miss Suri had no choice but to start offering two to three intakes annually to keep up with the influx of interest. 

In 2014, Miss Baljeet Suri decided to step down and similar to how Mrs Ray Cochrane had passed the school on to her, she passed it on to her favourite student, Eleonora Androva and her partner, Xubin Yuan. Eleonora, an accomplished advanced aesthetician with a successful luxury clinic in London, teamed up with Xubin, a meticulous chartered accountant renowned for his commitment to excellence. Under their ownership, Ray Cochrane has maintained its esteemed reputation whilst taking a step in a more modern direction.

When Eleonora took over, she worked in the beauty industry and was in touch with the latest and most popular courses. She realised that not everyone had time to dedicate a year to a full-time beauty course when there were alternatives. She and Xubin decided to introduce VTCT courses which offered learners the same internationally recognised training as CIDESCO but on a more flexible schedule that would encourage more people to pursue their passion for beauty and aesthetics. Following this direction, our beauty school introduced laser, nail technician and facial aesthetic courses taking us from a beauty school offering only one qualification to a beauty aesthetic academy currently offering over 15 beauty and aesthetic specialised training courses in London.

In 2022, Ray Cochrane was the number one VTCT Level 4 Laser & IPL training provider in the UK, with the most intakes nationwide annually. This was a huge honour and confirmed that moving into the aesthetic training field was the right decision for us as it showed our high-quality training was filling a gap in the market.

Finally, in 2023, Ray Cochrane Beauty Aesthetics Academy was nominated for VTCT’s inaugural Excellence Awards. We are so proud of the growth our school has made running for 70 years. We’ve managed to uphold our values of being a family-run business focused on offering the best beauty and aesthetic training in the UK while keeping up with an ever-changing industry.

If you are interested in studying with a distinguished beauty and aesthetic academy that upholds its commitment to providing superior training through exceptional teaching staff and state-of-the-art equipment, we encourage you to explore our course offerings or contact us.

Why choose us?
Ray Cochrane Beauty School is renowned for its high quality, small group size and professional beauty therapy courses.

We offer a wide range of highly sought-after beauty aesthetic courses, including beauty therapy, facial, laser, nails, and microblading to suit every type of learner and budget. We teach from Level 2 to Level 5 OFQUAL regulated courses, which are catered for the beauty enthusiast, which is ambitious, creative and business minded. Whether you are a total beginner, or already have some experience and want to expand your beauty skills, we are confident we can provide the right courses for you.

  • Trusted qualifications
    We offer some of the most sought after qualifications in the beauty Industry. These are offered by the UK leading and internationally recognised Vocational Qualification Awarding Bodies: VTCT, ITEC
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  • Flexible study mode
    We know that a career in the Beauty Industry can be an early decision in life or even as a change in career. It may also be for mothers whom would like to work part time from home. With this in mind, we have full time, part time and fast track study modes to suit everyone.
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  • Award winning school
    We’ve achieved many accolades throughout our 60 years. Notably, we were awarded the highly coveted Investors In People Award in 2009. We are a Flagship CIDESCO Institute in the UK and we were the 1st school in the UK to offer the highly respected CIDESCO Beauty Therapy Diploma.
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  • Flexible payment plans
    We understand that financially funding courses can often be difficult so we have flexible payment plans available.
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