Level 3 NVQ Contracting Operations

Yes. Level 3 on the Regulated Qualifications Framework is the same level as A levels and an advanced apprenticeship. It is a competence qualification rather than an academic one, so it proves you can do the job at that level rather than that you have studied it.

Estimating if you price enquiries and put tenders together. Buying if you order materials, plant and equipment and manage suppliers. Planning if you build and monitor programmes. Surveying if you handle costs and accounts. Site technical support if you implement contract work and look after dimensional control. Design coordinator if you integrate and control the design information. General if your job crosses several of these, in which case you build the qualification from at least three options. The initial assessment on this page works out which your week evidences.

The Level 3 is assessed on doing the work: pricing the enquiry, raising the order, updating the programme, controlling the information. The Level 6 is assessed on managing it: leading people, running the health and safety systems, taking decisions in meetings, developing the strategy behind the procurement and the tender. The Level 3 leads to the Gold Supervisor card and the Level 6 leads to the Black Manager card.

No. There is no classroom and no exam. Everything is assessed on the work you already do, through a portfolio of your own documents, an observation of you working and a professional discussion with your assessor, almost all of it by Zoom or Teams.

The Gold Supervisor card, valid five years. CSCS issue it for supervisory and technical occupations against a construction related supervisory or technical NVQ at Level 3 or Level 4. You also need a pass in the CITB Health, Safety and Environment test at Specialist Supervisory level, or GQA's own test, within the last two years, then the card application, which we make to GQA for you.

Yes, in case you need one. GQA issue a temporary card as soon as we register you and post it to you direct. It lasts up to twelve months and it cannot be renewed. We need your CITB HS&E test result report, a passport style photograph and the exact address to send it to, because GQA send it once. It is not a free Gold card: the Gold card follows the certificate.

As long as you take. There is no fixed duration, no cohort and no term dates, and the qualification is led by you. Most people in an office based role finish inside a few months alongside the job, and someone with a full project file and the time to sit down with it can be quicker.

Documents you already produce: enquiries and quotation comparisons, estimates and tender submissions, programmes and schedules, purchase orders and delivery records, drawings, schedules and registers, requests for information, cost records, survey and setting out data, health and safety records, meeting minutes and correspondence. Photocopied manufacturers' guidance and generic policies do not count on their own, so your assessor pairs them with a professional discussion.

You carry on from the next project. Evidence can come from more than one job and your assessor plans the units around what your next enquiry, order or programme will produce. Anything you cannot evidence yet is something we plan with you and your employer.

Any week. There is no intake and no waiting list. Click through the initial assessment and send it to us, and we will confirm your pathway, your options and what happens next.

Yes, employers can be invoiced and can put a whole estimating, buying or commercial team through as one booking. A CITB grant may be available to CITB registered employers. Tell us who is paying when you enquire and we will set it out properly before anyone commits.

We will tell you before you pay. The CSCS Card Finder currently lists the GQA version of this qualification against two of the seven pathways, Planning and Site Technical Support, which return the Gold Supervisor card and the CITB Specialist Supervisory test against the occupations Construction Planner and Site Technical Assistant. The other five pathways are the same qualification, awarded by the same awarding organisation in exactly the same way, but they are not listed yet. We check your pathway with CSCS before you register, and if the route is not yet listed we will say so plainly rather than let you find out at the end.

£1,145 + VAT. That is the whole qualification: registration with the awarding body, your assessor, the visits, the portfolio and the certificate. There is no separate exam fee and no course fee on top, because there is no course to attend. The CSCS card is applied for separately and CSCS charge their own fee for it.

Yes, and for someone already working in estimating, buying, planning or site administration that is the normal route. There is no set length. You are assessed on the work you are already responsible for, so the pace is set by how quickly the evidence comes together rather than by a timetable. People who already keep good records often finish far sooner than they expect. Nobody is held back waiting for a term to start.

Your assessor comes to you, and works from the job you are already doing. They look at the records you already produce, the programme, the risk assessments, the meeting notes and the correspondence, and talk through the decisions behind them. Between visits you upload evidence and your assessor tells you what is still missing. There is no college, no classroom and no written exam.