Social worker professional qualification examination and social worker professional level examination are actually the same qualification system, and there is no difference. The former is a generic term, while the latter is a classified title.

On July 20, 2006, the Ministry of Personnel and the Ministry of Civil Affairs jointly issued the Interim Provisions on the Evaluation of Social Workers' Professional Level and the Implementation Measures for the Professional Level Examination of Assistant Social Workers and Social Workers, which included social workers in the category of professional and technical personnel for the first time in the national system, marking the formal establishment of the professional level evaluation system for social workers in China. The professional level examination for social workers has become the main way to evaluate the professional level of social workers and the main means for social workers to obtain corresponding professional qualifications and levels. 1994, China first established a qualification system, named as: vocational qualification and vocational qualification, and later developed into vocational grade qualification and access qualification, both of which are referred to as vocational qualification system for short (see the comparison of qualification systems in the third quarter of Chapter II of Introduction to Vocational Qualification System (published by China Personnel Publishing House)).