Early afternoon at St George’s Park and Scott Parker has taken leave of the latest intake of Pro Licence candidates, all discussing the day’s early sessions over a buffet lunch, and is shedding light on what a former England midfielder does next. The latest trend among elite players is to gravitate towards punditry, their fortunes long since made in the upper echelons of the game, but Parker has other priorities. “My drive and passion is to be out there, to try to coach a team, to influence a side and give them something we can be proud of,” he says. “This course is a big commitment, one I’ve taken on while still playing. But this is what I want to do.”

It is a process that started some time ago. Much about Parker is refreshing, from his optimistic views on youth development in this country to the difficulties a veteran of more than 500 first-team games at seven clubs has experienced in preparing for life on the sidelines rather than central midfield. But it is that foresight in properly planning ahead that is particularly striking.

The 35-year-old is realistic about what remains of his playing career at Fulham, but he has had his future mapped out for a while. The preparations began in his Tottenham Hotspur days, when he was still injecting busy energy into midfield for club and country, where he embarked on his coaching badges in his spare time and quietly graduated up through the A and B licences in the years that followed.

The final step is the £7,595 FA Uefa Pro Licence course, a mandatory qualification for managers in the Premier League. Its modules extend through 245 guided learning hours spread over 30 day-long sessions across 18 months, the latest batch of students – among them the Rangers manager Mark Warburton, Brad Friedel, the England women’s team manager Mark Sampson, Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink of Queens Park Rangers and Valencia’s assistant first-team coach Phil Neville – due to graduate in June. This week’s sessions dealt largely with how to avoid blinking in the media glare but, while the various role-play scenarios are tackled with relish, every aspect of this course is challenging.

As a player with 18 England caps and a starter in all four matches played by Roy Hodgson’s side at Euro 2012, he may still appear to have a head start over fellow students Stephen Torpey or Ian Woan, Dino Maamria or Andy Awford. Or even Ben Garner, whose playing career was wrecked by an ankle injury at 18 but who has become a trusted confidante to Tony Pulis on the coaching staff at Crystal Palace and West Bromwich Albion. Parker, who has commanded transfer fees totalling around £30m and was voted the Football Writers’ Association footballer of the year in 2011, benefits from being known. He has coached in the academy at Fulham, and even sat among the backroom staff on the first-team bench during Peter Grant’s caretaker stewardship of the club before the appointment of Slavisa Jokanovic.

“I would be lying if I said that my playing career didn’t give me a bit of an advantage,” he says. “Whether you are stepping into a changing room or gaining respect from your peers, I am sure it does. But ultimately it comes down to the work you do on the training field and the results you get really. That is going to be key. This course was about getting the ball rolling, learning as much as I can, and it’s taken me six years to get in the position I’m in now. You go through the various badges, but now you start to realise just how different this job is. I’ve played so many games, big games, but coaching is something else. And difficult, to be fair. There is an art to getting your message across, relaying the little things you have learned. What comes instinctively on a football pitch can be quite difficult to try to teach to someone else.

“But you can learn how to do that. I do some coaching down at Fulham, and I did a lot at Spurs with [the head of coaching and player development] John McDermott. I was coaching people like Josh Onomah and Harry Winks, and John was a massive help for me. I like dealing with people. I like being around people, and that side of me can try to get the best out of others, really. As a player and as a captain, I felt I did that. Now, hopefully, one day I’ll give it a go as a coach or a manager. And it’s been interesting to work with the youngsters.

“The players coming through now are far more technical than we were. Drive? Ambition? Personalities? Maybe you could question that at times, but is that the generation we are living in today? Computers, social media … everything is at hand. Is that going to be a negative in terms of lads having that real drive and ambition to go and be successful? When I was growing up all I had was a ball, so I’d go out to the estate and literally spend days out there. The kids have much more than that now. Certainly, technically, I don’t think our kids are behind like we were. Five years ago we were. It was clear the younger talent coming through from Spain and Germany was better. I don’t think that is the case any more. And, for me, there is a passion in managing or coaching, whether it is working on a training ground or dealing with a 16-year-old who has a problem I can help him out with. I get quite a buzz from that.”

Given that more managers than ever – 29 – had been sacked by the end of December this season, with four following already this month, that appears a risky ambition. Yet Parker understands the pitfalls. He has been a sponge soaking up knowledge throughout his career, and although he prefers not to name those under whom his teams have most laboured, even trying experiences provided an education. “That’s the same as when you’re a player. You learn more about yourself when you come off the back of a 4-0 and you have been absolutely terrible, kicking the ball in the stand every five minutes. That is life isn’t it? Any walk of life.”

But he has benefited from an enviable schooling under Alan Curbishley, Claudio Ranieri, José Mourinho, Graeme Souness, Gianfranco Zola and Harry Redknapp, to name but a few. Many of those remain in contact, and one on a daily basis. “Alan is now with me at Fulham so our relationship has come full circle,” he says of Curbishley, a member of the backroom staff. “It has gone from that father figure who was nurturing me along as a young boy at Charlton, to him being a bit of a mentor. I never used to ask him questions because I was scared of him, but now I’m badgering him with: ‘What do you think about this? How would you deal with that?’ I’ve learned a lot from them all, picked up some things I’ve liked and other things I’ve not, but it’ll hopefully put me in good stead when I give it a go myself.

“But it is all a process. We did a presentation the last time here on communication, how you get your message across, and it was the first time sitting there that I’d felt uncomfortable. When you are pushed out of your comfort zone, that’s when you realise you may have to learn a little bit more. During that part of the module I thought: ‘You know what, I am going to have to get better at this because, if I want to be a manager, I am going to have to engage with bigger groups and prepare right.’ It has been good in that sense.”

Since St George’s Park was opened in 2012 it has hosted the development of more than 1,400 coaches at Pro, A and B licence levels. Some of those, such as Parker, are still playing league football albeit the midfielder is coming close to the next stage.

His contract at Craven Cottage expires in the summer, his game-time limited to seven appearances to date this term after ankle surgery. “I’m not sure yet, really, how long I will go on,” he says. “At the end of last season I had the operation and it took quite a long time for me to get back – I was struggling with it – but over the last four or five weeks I’ve felt pretty good with my ankle. A new manager has come in since, so we’ll see how this season pans out and make a call then.”

For most players, acknowledging when the time has come to call it a day is the hardest decision of all. A step into the unknown. At least Parker will know his next move has been more than six years in the planning.