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Fenestration Surveyor Qualification: Level 3 NVQ Certificate
The qualification behind the Gold CSCS card for the fenestration surveyor: the person who measures the apertures, checks the structure and writes the specification the installers work from. Assessed on the surveys you already do, awarded by GQA, who also issue the card. No college and no exam.
Why candidates choose Acadame
What makes our Level 3 NVQ Fenestration Surveying different
About this qualification
The Level 3 NVQ Certificate in Fenestration Surveying is the qualification behind the Gold Skilled Worker card for the fenestration surveyor, and the recognised proof that you can survey for windows, doors, conservatories and curtain walling. It is not taught. It records, against the national occupational standards, the surveying you already do: taking and recording measurements and tolerances, spotting structural problems and hidden detail before the fitters find them, deciding the ancillary products, producing the specifications, drawings and cutting lists the installation is built from, and keeping it all within the building regulations.
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 fenestration surveyors and installers. It is a Certificate rather than a Diploma, so it is smaller than the installation qualifications: five mandatory units and one option, 27 credits against 38 for the Level 3 Fenestration Installation. There is no pathway to choose. The specification unit covers window and door, curtain wall and conservatory installations, and you evidence it on whichever you survey.
Assessment is a portfolio of survey sheets, photographs, specifications and witness testimony from your own jobs, an observation of you surveying and a professional discussion with your assessor, most of it by video call. There is no fixed duration: you register any week and finish as quickly as your surveys produce the evidence.
- Nothing new, if you are already surveying for installations. The qualification records what you do rather than teaching it
- How to evidence a survey properly: what a completed survey sheet, a photograph of the opening, a specification and a witness testimony from your installation manager each prove
- Which option gives you the most credits for the least effort: controlling installations, the post installation checks, or resources and health and safety
- Where the installation qualifications sit, and whether a surveyor who still fits should hold both
How completing this qualification helps you
- The Level 3 NVQ Certificate in Fenestration Surveying, certificated by GQA
- Eligibility for the Gold Skilled Worker card, the CSCS card GQA issue for fenestration surveyors, 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 your surveys can be built from, for installers, main contractors and competent person schemes
Who is it for?
Fenestration surveyors, installation surveyors and technical surveyors at window, door, conservatory and curtain wall companies, installers and installation managers who survey their own jobs, and anyone whose Gold card has run out without a qualification behind it. GQA aim it at experienced surveyors who often take a technical supervisory role. If you fit but someone else surveys, the Level 2 or Level 3 Fenestration Installation is the one for you.
Entry requirements. There are no formal entry requirements. What you do need is live survey work to evidence from, because every unit is assessed on real jobs: your survey sheets, your specifications, the openings you measured, your installation manager'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 and what you can evidence, and it shows you the units 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
Five units are mandatory, worth 24 credits: health and safety while surveying, the building regulations, identifying the installation requirements, communicating and working with others, and producing the specification. You then evidence at least 3 credits from six options. 27 credits minimum, 110 guided learning hours, 270 hours total qualification time. It is a Certificate, so it is smaller than the Diplomas in this family: the Level 3 Fenestration Installation is 38 credits. Nothing is taught: each unit is evidenced from your own work.
The five units everyone completes (24 credits)
- F/601/9144 Maintain health and safety within fenestration surveying (2 credits)
- K/600/8445 Understanding the building regulations in the fenestration industry (3)
- F/602/4425 Identify fenestration installation requirements (7)
- A/600/7364 Communicating and working with others in the glass and related working environments (3)
- A/602/4424 Produce specifications for window and door, curtain wall or conservatory installations (9)
Pick at least 3 credits from these
- J/602/4426 Control the installation of windows and doors, or conservatories, or curtain walling (8)
- A/600/8434 Post windows, doors or conservatories installation activity (3)
- K/600/6677 Post curtain walling activity (3)
- Y/600/8151 Ensure resources are available to meet work requirements in a glass or glass related working environment (3)
- T/600/7363 Promote and maintain health and safety in a glass or glass related working environment (4)
- 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)
- Any one option meets the minimum. Surveyors who also check the finished job usually take a post installation unit; surveyors who run the installers take the control unit
Method of assessment
How the fenestration surveyor NVQ assessment works
Competence based, which means no exam and no written test. You build a portfolio of evidence from the surveys you do, your assessor watches you survey 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 week is surveying or installing, whether you have enough live survey work to evidence it, and which option your jobs already produce.
2. Register with GQA
We register you with GQA under qualification number 501/2109/1. 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 surveys
Completed survey sheets with the measurements and tolerances, photographs of the openings and the structural or hidden detail you found, the specifications, sketches, drawings and cutting lists you produced, order and delivery paperwork that came from your survey, witness testimony from your installation manager, the RAMS you surveyed under, the CoSHH sheets for anything you specified. Your assessor tells you exactly what each unit needs.
4. Workplace observation
Your assessor joins you on a survey, in person or by video, and watches you measure, check the structure and the access, identify the ancillaries, talk to the customer and record it, and records what they see against the standard.
5. Professional discussion
A recorded conversation about why you survey the way you do. It covers the knowledge a survey sheet cannot show: the building regulations behind a specification, how you deal with a structural problem or hidden detail, tolerances and why they matter, what you do when the customer wants something that will not comply.
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 fenestration surveyors, like the installers' cards, 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 Installation alongside it, if you lead the installs you survey
Level 3 NVQ Fenestration Surveying 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 survey to the standard rather than that you have studied it, which is what GQA, CSCS and installation companies want from a surveyor.
No. There is no classroom and no exam. Everything is assessed on the surveys you already do, through your survey sheets, photographs and specifications, an observation of you surveying and a professional discussion with your assessor.
Size. A Certificate is a smaller qualification than a Diploma: this one is 27 credits, five mandatory units and one option, against 38 credits for the Level 3 Fenestration Installation Diploma. Both are Level 3 and both lead to the same Gold card. The surveying Certificate is smaller because surveying is a narrower job than leading an installation, not because it is a lower level.
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. Fenestration surveyor is one of the occupations CSCS passed to GQA in 2017. 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.
Whichever your week evidences most, and many people hold both. If you survey and someone else fits, this is the one. If you survey your own jobs and lead the installation, the Level 3 Fenestration Installation records the fitting and this records the surveying, and the Gold card is the same. If you fit but someone else surveys, the Level 2 or Level 3 Fenestration Installation is the right one. The initial assessment on this page tells you before you pay.
Completed survey sheets with the measurements and tolerances, photographs of the openings and of any structural problem or hidden detail you found, the specifications, sketches, drawings and cutting lists you produced, order and delivery paperwork that came from your surveys, witness testimony from your installation manager, the RAMS you surveyed under and the CoSHH sheets for anything you specified. Your assessor maps each one to a unit and tells you what is missing.
You carry on from the next survey. Evidence can come from more than one job and your assessor plans the units around what your next surveys 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 their surveyors and installers through as one booking. A CITB grant may be available to CITB registered employers, and we check what applies before you commit. Self employed surveyors 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 a window surveyor already measuring and specifying jobs 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 look at the surveys you have already carried out, your measurements, your specifications and the notes behind them, and talk through the decisions you made. 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.