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Advanced Window Fitting NVQ: Level 3 Fenestration Installation
The qualification behind the Gold CSCS card for the installer who leads the job: bay, box sash, oriel and rooflight windows, conservatories, or curtain walling, and the technical problems nobody else can sort. Assessed on the installs you already run, awarded by GQA, who also issue the card. No college and no exam.
Why candidates choose Acadame
What makes our Level 3 NVQ Fenestration Installation different
About this qualification
The Level 3 NVQ Diploma in Fenestration Installation is the qualification behind the Gold Skilled Worker card for window and door installers, curtain wall installers and the team leaders who run installations. It is not taught. It records, against the national occupational standards, the level of work a Level 2 does not: identifying and putting right technical problems on site, confirming complex installation requirements, improving how the team uses its resources and works with the customer and the site, and the complex installs themselves: bay, box sash, oriel and rooflight windows, conservatories, or curtain walling from the datums up.
It is awarded by GQA Qualifications, the awarding organisation for the glass and fenestration trades and, since 2017, the body that issues the CSCS card for those trades. Every installer completes the same four mandatory units. The options are then grouped so that a windows and doors installer, a conservatory installer and a curtain wall installer each evidence their own work, and GQA say in the specification that some options suit window and door installers and others suit curtain wall installers. For curtain wall installers this is also the qualification GQA ask for on a Level 3 curtain wall installer card, evidenced with the curtain walling units.
Assessment is a portfolio of photographs, survey sheets, job sheets, the problems you solved and witness testimony from your own installs, an observation of you leading a job and a professional discussion with your assessor, most of it from your phone and by video call. There is no fixed duration: you register any week and finish as quickly as your jobs produce the evidence.
- Nothing new, if you are already leading installs and sorting the problems. The qualification records what you do rather than teaching it
- How to evidence the Level 3: what a photograph of a bay being set out, a record of a technical problem you put right and a witness testimony from the site each prove
- Which option groups your week evidences, windows and doors, conservatories or curtain walling, and which give you the most credits for the least effort
- Where the Level 2 Fenestration Installation sits, and whether your week is still inside it
How completing this qualification helps you
- The Level 3 NVQ Diploma in Fenestration Installation, certificated by GQA with the units you evidenced
- Eligibility for the Gold Skilled Worker card, the CSCS card GQA issue for the fenestration trades at Level 3, once you have passed the health and safety test, issued by GQA under their own CSCS card scheme
- A temporary CSCS card on registration, in case you need one while you complete
- A Level 3 that never expires and stands as the industry's proof that you can lead an installation, for main contractors, housebuilders and facade packages
Who is it for?
Lead installers, chargehands and team leaders who run window, door, conservatory or curtain wall installations and sort the technical problems, experienced installers whose week is the complex work, curtain wall installers who need the Level 3 for their card, and anyone whose Gold card or old Industry Accreditation card has run out without a qualification behind it. If you fit to a good standard but someone else leads the job, the Level 2 is the honest fit.
Entry requirements. There are no formal entry requirements and you do not need the Level 2 first. What you do need is live installation work at this level to evidence from, because every unit is assessed on real jobs: the problems you solved, the complex installs you led, your survey and job sheets, the site's word. The initial assessment below confirms this before you pay anything.
Ready to find out if you qualify?
The initial assessment takes a couple of minutes and nothing is typed: you click through what you do and what you can evidence, and it tells you the pathway, the level and what to gather. Or ask MB and get an answer straight away.
Initial assessment
Check you qualify, in a couple of minutes
Nothing to type. Click through what you do, what you install most weeks and what you can evidence, and it shows you the option groups that fit and the evidence your assessor will ask for. It is about what you can evidence, not a test: anything you cannot evidence yet is something we plan with you and your employer. These answers are your initial assessment, and you can email yourself a PDF of it.
The online check needs JavaScript. Without it, tell us what you do and we will run the initial assessment with you over the phone.
What you evidence
The units behind the qualification
Four units are mandatory, worth 18 credits. You then evidence at least 9 credits from group B (the complex installs: bays, box sash, oriel and rooflight windows, conservatories, or the curtain walling units), at least 4 from group C (controlling the installation, quality, repairs, resources), at least 4 from group D (installing windows and doors, glass and panels, or curtain walling systems) and at least 3 from group E (building regulations, or facade legislation). 38 credits minimum, 176 guided learning hours, 380 hours total qualification time. As a Diploma it is bigger than the Level 3 Certificate in Fenestration Surveying, which is 27 credits. Nothing is taught: each unit is evidenced from your own work.
The four units everyone completes (18 credits)
- A/600/7624 Maintain health and safety within the fenestration installation working environment (4 credits)
- J/600/7657 Identify and rectify technical problems in a glass or glass related working environment (5)
- R/600/8262 Improve the work of the organisation through the use of resources, communication and working relationships in a glass or glass related working environment (5)
- Y/600/6691 Identify and confirm installation requirements in glass and related work (4)
Pick at least 9 credits from these: the complex installs
- M/602/4971 Install bay windows (9) and T/602/4969 Remove bay windows (8)
- F/602/4974 Remove and install box sash windows (9)
- J/602/4975 Remove and install oriel windows (9)
- R/602/4977 Remove and install rooflight windows (9)
- A/600/8269 Install conservatories (14)
- R/601/9200 Create datum points for curtain wall installation (6)
- Y/602/4978 Install facetted, structurally glazed or unitised curtain walling systems (7)
- K/600/6677 Post curtain walling activity (3)
- One bay, box sash, oriel or rooflight unit meets the minimum on its own; so does the conservatory unit; curtain wall installers combine the datum, facetted and post curtain walling units
Pick at least 4 credits from these: leading the job
- J/602/4426 Control the installation of doors and windows, or conservatories, or curtain walling (8)
- A/600/7655 Assess the quality of materials and components in a glass or glass related working environment (4)
- H/600/8430 Maintain/repair windows and doors or conservatories (6)
- T/600/7363 Promote and maintain health and safety within a glass or glass related working environment (4)
- Y/600/8151 Ensure resources are available to meet work requirements in a glass or glass related working environment (3)
Pick at least 4 credits from these: what you install
- T/600/8416 Install windows and doors (8)
- Y/600/8425 Install glass and/or panels into windows and doors (4)
- R/600/6687 Install curtain walling systems (11)
- For a Level 3 curtain wall installer card GQA look for this qualification with the Install curtain walling systems unit, the facetted and unitised unit, or both
Pick at least 3 credits from these: regulations
- K/600/8445 Understanding the building regulations in the fenestration industry (3)
- A/503/0536 Knowledge of building regulations and legislation in facades (5)
- Knowledge units, evidenced through the professional discussion rather than photographs
Method of assessment
How the Level 3 window fitting NVQ on-site assessment works
Competence based, which means no exam and no written test. You build a portfolio of evidence from the installs you lead, your assessor watches you run a job and you talk the knowledge through in a professional discussion. The online check above is your initial assessment; there is no separate skills scan.
1. Initial assessment, online
The questions you click through above are your initial assessment. They tell us whether your work is windows and doors, conservatories or curtain walling, whether you have enough live work at Level 3 to evidence it, and whether your week is really still the Level 2.
2. Register with GQA
We register you with GQA under qualification number 501/1688/5. That registration can also release a temporary CSCS card in case you need one, once we have your HS&E test result report, a passport style photograph and the right postal address.
3. Evidence from your own jobs
Photographs of each complex install at stages, from setting out to the sealed and cleaned down finish, survey sheets and job sheets, the drawings and specifications you worked to, records of the technical problems you found and put right, delivery notes, witness testimony from your installation manager or the site manager, the RAMS and toolbox talks you briefed, the CoSHH sheets for your sealants and foams. Your assessor tells you exactly what each unit needs.
4. Workplace observation
Your assessor comes to the job and watches you lead it: checking the survey and the datums, setting out a bay or a run of mullions, directing the fitters, solving the problem the aperture throws up, checking the quality and handing over, and records what they see against the standard.
5. Professional discussion
A recorded conversation about why you work the way you do. It covers the knowledge a photograph cannot show: structural support for a bay, why a unitised system is set out from those datums, the building regulations or the facade legislation behind a decision, how you handled a product that did not match the survey.
6. Certificate, then the card
Internal quality assurance, then GQA issue the certificate. Pass the CITB Operatives test and apply to GQA for the Gold Skilled Worker card.
After the qualification
Getting the Gold card, not just the certificate
The NVQ is only half of what the card needs. Since 2017 the CSCS card for window, door, conservatory and curtain wall installers is issued by GQA rather than by CSCS direct: at Level 3 it is the Gold CSCS Q-Card, Advanced Craft, it carries the CSCS logo and it is checked the same way at the gate. It needs the Level 3 qualification and a pass in a health and safety test taken within the last two years, either the CITB Health, Safety and Environment test for Operatives or GQA's own test. We book the right one for you. GQA issue their own CSCS cards, so the certificate and the card both come from GQA, and the card carries the CSCS logo and is read on site like any other.
You do not have to wait for any of that to be on site. GQA issue a temporary CSCS card as soon as we register you, in case you need one while you complete, and post it to you direct. We pick up the cost. You give us your HS&E test result report, a passport style photograph and the exact postal address, because GQA send it once and we will not pay for it twice if the address is wrong. It is not a free Gold card: it lasts up to twelve months and the Gold card follows the certificate.
- CITB Health, Safety and Environment test at Operatives level, or GQA's own test, booked with us
- Gold Skilled Worker card application, which we make to GQA for you, valid five years
- Temporary card on registration, in case you need one, posted by GQA
- The Level 3 Fenestration Surveying alongside it, if you survey the jobs you lead
Level 3 NVQ Fenestration Installation FAQs
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 lead the job rather than that you have studied it, which is what GQA, CSCS and main contractors want from an advanced craft card holder.
No. If your week already evidences the Level 3, you register straight onto it. The Level 2 is assessed on fitting to a good standard; the Level 3 is assessed on leading the job, solving the technical problems and the complex installs. The initial assessment on this page tells you which is the honest fit before you pay.
No. There is no classroom and no exam. Everything is assessed on the installs you already lead, through photographs and documents from your own jobs, an observation of you working and a professional discussion with your assessor.
The Gold Skilled Worker card, valid five years. For the fenestration trades the card is issued by GQA as the Gold CSCS Q-Card, which carries the CSCS logo and is checked the same way on site. You need the Level 3 certificate plus a pass in the CITB Health, Safety and Environment test for Operatives, or GQA's own health and safety test, within the last two years, then the card application, which we make to GQA for you. Curtain wall installers need the curtain walling units on the certificate for the Level 3 curtain wall installer card, which is why the initial assessment asks what you install.
Yes, in case you need one. GQA issue a temporary card as soon as we register you and post it to you direct, at our cost. We need your HS&E test result report, a passport style photograph and the exact address to send it to. It is not a free Gold card: it lasts up to twelve months and the Gold card follows the certificate.
Photographs of each complex install at stages, survey sheets and job sheets, the drawings and specifications you worked to, records of the technical problems you found and put right, delivery notes for frames, glass and curtain wall components, witness testimony from your installation manager or the site manager, the RAMS and toolbox talk records you briefed, and the CoSHH sheets for your sealants and foams. Your assessor maps each one to a unit and tells you what is missing.
You carry on from the next job. Evidence can come from more than one install and your assessor plans the units around what your next jobs will produce. A bay or a box sash job in the diary is enough to plan group B around. Anything you cannot evidence yet is something we plan with you and your employer, and the initial assessment shows it before you pay.
Yes. Employers can be invoiced and can put a whole installation team through as one booking, Level 2 and Level 3 together. A CITB grant may be available to CITB registered employers, and we check what applies before you commit. Self employed installers pay direct, with interest free instalments if you want them.
£950 + 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 an experienced window fitter leading complex installations that is the normal route. There is no set length. You are assessed on the work you are already doing, so the pace is set by how quickly the evidence comes together rather than by a timetable. People who already have photographs, job records and a supervisor who will sign a witness statement often finish inside a few weeks. Nobody is held back waiting for a term to start.
Your assessor comes to you, on your own jobs, in your own working week. They watch you work, take photographs, ask you why you did it that way, and record it against the units. Between visits you upload evidence and your assessor tells you what is still missing. There is no college, no classroom and no written exam.
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Putting several people through?
One assessor and one invoice for the whole team
Group registrations are common on frameworks and large sites. We assess on site so nobody leaves the project, and we handle the awarding body, the certificates and the cards in one place.