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NVQ Level 2 Bricklaying (Trowel Occupations)
The bricklaying qualification behind the Blue CSCS Skilled Worker card, assessed on the walls you are already building. No college and no exam. Register any week and go at your own pace.
Why candidates choose Acadame
What makes our Level 2 NVQ Trowel Occupations, Bricklaying different
About this qualification
The Level 2 NVQ Diploma in Trowel Occupations (Construction) is the bricklaying qualification CSCS accept for the Blue Skilled Worker card, and the one most bricklayers who learned on site hold instead of a college certificate. It is not taught. It records, against the national occupational standards, the work you already do: setting out from the drawings, building brick and block walls to the line, cavity work, openings, piers and joint finishes, done safely and to the specification.
It is awarded by GQA Qualifications as a single pathway with five mandatory units and a choice of options: masonry cladding, thin joint blockwork, repairing and maintaining masonry, drainage, placing concrete, and specialist masonry elements. You take at least one option, and it is the one your work already covers, so a housing site bricklayer and a commercial bricklayer each evidence the job they actually do.
Assessment is a portfolio of photographs, job sheets and witness testimony from your own jobs, an observation of you laying 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 laying to a commercial standard. The qualification records what you do rather than teaching it
- How to evidence a job properly: what a photograph at each lift, a job sheet and a witness testimony from the site manager each prove
- Which option your week already covers, from cladding and thin joint to drainage and concrete, and how to capture it
- Where the Level 3 Trowel Occupations sits, and whether the setting out and the decorative work you do already point at it
How completing this qualification helps you
- The Level 2 NVQ Diploma in Trowel Occupations (Construction), certificated by GQA
- Eligibility for the Blue CSCS Skilled Worker card, 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 2 that never expires, which is what main contractors ask for before they let a bricklayer through the gate
Who is it for?
Bricklayers who learned on site and hold no formal qualification, self employed bricklayers who need a card for commercial and housing sites, and anyone whose Blue card or old Industry Accreditation card has run out without a qualification behind it. If you mix, load out and lay a few under supervision, talk to us first, because you need enough of your own work to evidence.
Entry requirements. There are no formal entry requirements. What you do need is live bricklaying work to evidence from, because every unit is assessed on real jobs: your photographs at each lift, your job sheets, the drawings you set out from, your site manager's word. Most people are assessed on their normal week. 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, the kind of brickwork you are on and what you can evidence, and it shows you whether the Level 2 fits, which option your work already covers 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
Five units are mandatory, worth 64 credits, and you add at least one option from six. 334 guided learning hours, 610 hours total qualification time. Nothing is taught: each unit is evidenced from your own work.
The five units everyone completes (64 credits)
- A/503/1170 Conforming to general health, safety and welfare in the workplace (2 credits)
- J/503/1169 Conforming to productive working practices in the workplace (3)
- F/503/1171 Moving, handling and storing resources in the workplace (5)
- D/650/0296 Setting out to form masonry structures in the workplace (23)
- A/650/0295 Erecting masonry structures in the workplace (31)
Pick at least one option
- T/650/0293 Erecting masonry cladding in the workplace (24)
- H/650/0298 Erect thin joint masonry structures in the workplace (24)
- Y/650/0294 Repairing and maintaining masonry structures in the workplace (25)
- R/650/0292 Installing drainage in the workplace (19)
- M/650/0291 Placing and compacting concrete in the workplace (11)
- F/650/0297 Installing and forming specialist masonry elements in the workplace (21)
- Housing site bricklayers usually have drainage or concrete to evidence; commercial bricklayers usually have cladding or thin joint. Anything beyond the minimum is listed on the certificate as additional credits
Method of assessment
How the Level 2 bricklaying NVQ on-site assessment works
Competence based, which means no exam and no written test. You build a portfolio of evidence from the jobs you are on, your assessor watches you lay 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 which option your work already covers, whether you have enough live work to evidence it, and whether the setting out and the decorative work you do already point at the Level 3 instead.
2. Register with GQA
We register you with GQA under qualification number 610/0052/9. 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 the work at each stage: DPC, first lifts, cavity insulation and ties, lintels and cavity trays, the finished wall. Job sheets and day sheets, the drawings you set out from, delivery notes, witness testimony from the site manager, the RAMS and toolbox talks you signed, the CoSHH sheets for cement and admixtures. Your assessor tells you exactly what each unit needs.
4. Workplace observation
Your assessor comes to the job and watches you lay: setting out, running the corners, laying to the line, forming an opening, finishing the joints, 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: bonding and gauge, cavity and DPC detailing, mortar mixes and the weather, what you do when the drawing and the site do not match.
6. Certificate, then the card
Internal quality assurance, then GQA issue the certificate. Pass the CITB Operatives test, or GQA's own health and safety test, and we apply to GQA for your Blue Skilled Worker card.
After the qualification
Getting the Blue card, not just the certificate
The qualification is only half of it. The Blue Skilled Worker card needs the Level 2 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. Not the Specialist test, and not the Managers and Professionals 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 Blue card: that follows the certificate.
- CITB Health, Safety and Environment test at Operatives level, or GQA's own test, booked with us
- Blue 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 Trowel Occupations next, if the setting out and the decorative work are already yours
Level 2 NVQ Trowel Occupations, Bricklaying FAQs
No. There is no classroom and no exam. Everything is assessed on the bricklaying you already do, through photographs and documents from your own jobs, an observation of you laying and a professional discussion with your assessor.
As long as you take. There is no fixed duration, no cohort and no term dates: you register any week and the qualification is led by you. Most bricklayers finish inside a few months alongside the job, and someone with a phone full of photographs from recent jobs can be quicker.
The Blue Skilled Worker card, valid five years. You need the Level 2 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. The Level 3 gets the Gold Skilled Worker card.
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 Blue card: the Blue card follows the certificate.
The one your jobs already evidence. On housing sites that is usually drainage or placing concrete. On commercial and framed buildings it is usually masonry cladding or thin joint blockwork. If you cut out and replace, repoint and rebuild, it is repairing and maintaining masonry, and arches, feature and decorative work are specialist masonry elements. You need one, and anything else you evidence goes on the certificate as additional credits. The initial assessment on this page works it out from what you click.
Photographs of each job at stages, from the DPC and the first lifts through the cavity insulation and ties to the lintels and the finished wall, job sheets or day sheets, the drawings you set out from, delivery notes for bricks, blocks and cement, witness testimony from the site manager, the RAMS and toolbox talk records you signed, and the CoSHH sheets for cement and admixtures. 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 job and your assessor plans the units around what your next job will produce. 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 gang through as one booking. A CITB grant may be available to CITB registered employers, and we check what applies before you commit. Self employed bricklayers pay direct, with interest free instalments if you want them.
£850 + 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 bricklayer who has been laying for years and has never been assessed 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.