Level 6 NVQ Senior Site Inspection

Yes. Level 6 on the Regulated Qualifications Framework is the same level as a bachelor's degree. It is a competence qualification rather than an academic one, so it proves you can do the job rather than that you have studied it, which is what CSCS and most clients want from a clerk of works.

Yes. Senior Site Inspection is the national occupational standard for the clerk of works role: monitoring project quality, running the technical information systems, verifying the site health and safety systems, and managing progress and handover. It is assessed on the inspections and reports you already produce, so a clerk of works with a live project has most of the evidence already.

The Level 3 is assessed on monitoring the work: checking dimensional accuracy, inspecting and reporting on condition, keeping the inspection records straight under someone else's sign off. The Level 6 is assessed on owning the standard: you set up the technical information systems, you verify that the health and safety systems work, you manage progress and handover and you carry the professional judgement. The initial assessment on this page tells you which your week evidences.

No. There is no classroom and no exam. Everything is assessed on the inspection work you already do, through a portfolio of your own records, an observation of you working and a professional discussion with your assessor.

The Black Manager card, valid five years. You need the Level 6 certificate plus a pass in the CITB Health, Safety and Environment test for Managers and Professionals, or GQA's own health and safety test, within the last two years, then the card application, which we make to GQA for you. The Level 6 Site Management and the Level 7 get the same card.

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 Black card: the Black 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 inspectors finish inside a year alongside the job, and someone with a full project file and the time to sit down with it can be quicker. Handover evidence needs a project that reaches handover, so your assessor plans that unit around what is coming up.

Documents you already produce: inspection and test plans, inspection records and hold point photographs, snagging and non conformance reports, quality reports to the client, benchmark approvals, handover and operation and maintenance files, progress reports, health and safety audit records, meeting minutes. Your assessor maps each one to a unit and tells you what is missing.

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 fit, the two options that suit your week and what happens next.

Yes, employers can be invoiced and can put a whole inspection 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.

Because GQA's version of it is new. The same qualification from other awarding organisations is listed, and it returns the Black Manager card and the CITB Managers and Professionals test against the occupation Construction Site Inspection Manager. GQA's version is the same qualification at the same level, it is simply not on the Card Finder yet, so we confirm the position with CSCS before you register rather than assume it. If it is still not listed when you are ready to go, we will tell you before you commit.

£1,795 + 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 a senior inspector or clerk of works already leading inspection on major works 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.