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NVQ Level 3 Plastering
The qualification behind the Gold CSCS Skilled Worker card for plasterers, the card CSCS used to call Advanced Craft, assessed on the complex work you already do. Solid or fibrous, no college and no exam. Register any week and go at your own pace.
Why candidates choose Acadame
What makes our Level 3 NVQ Plastering different
About this qualification
The Level 3 NVQ Diploma in Plastering (Construction) is the qualification CSCS accept for the Gold Skilled Worker card, the card they used to call Advanced Craft, and the one experienced plasterers hold when they are the person on the job that others work to. It is not taught. It records, against the national occupational standards, the plastering you already do at that level: confirming the method and the materials before the job starts, complex internal and external finishes or complex moulds and fibrous work, and dealing with the site manager and the other trades.
It is awarded by GQA Qualifications on two pathways. Solid is for the plasterer producing complex internal finishes and complex external render, with dry lining, mechanically fixed plasterboard and in situ mouldings as the options. Fibrous is for the plasterer making complex moulds and installing complex fibrous components, with in situ mouldings and complex repairs as the options. Both share the same four core units, and the certificate carries the pathway.
Assessment is a portfolio of photographs, drawings, job sheets and witness testimony from your own jobs, an observation of you working 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 doing the complex work and leading the job. The qualification records what you do rather than teaching it
- How to evidence Level 3 competence: what a method you confirmed, a material take-off, a set of stage photographs and a witness testimony from the site manager each prove
- Which pathway your week evidences, solid or fibrous, and which options give you the most credits for the least effort
- Where the Level 2 Plastering sits, and whether your work is still inside it
How completing this qualification helps you
- The Level 3 NVQ Diploma in Plastering (Construction), certificated by GQA on the solid or fibrous pathway
- Eligibility for the Gold 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 3 that never expires, and the base for the Level 3 Occupational Work Supervision if you go on to run a gang
Who is it for?
Experienced plasterers who set out and lead the job, do the complex internal, external or fibrous work and have other plasterers working to them, with no formal qualification at this level. Also plasterers with a Level 2 whose work has moved on, and anyone whose Gold card has run out without a qualification behind it.
Entry requirements. There are no formal entry requirements and you do not need the Level 2 first. What you do need is live plastering work at this level to evidence from, because every unit is assessed on real jobs: the method you confirmed, the materials you ordered, the complex work you produced, your site manager's word. If someone else sets out and takes the lead, the Level 2 is the honest fit and the Blue card is the one your work evidences. 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 plastering you are on and what you can evidence, and it shows you the pathway that fits 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 whichever pathway you take, worth 31 credits. The solid pathway adds complex internal solid finishes and complex external rendering (54 credits) and at least 14 credits of options: 99 credits minimum. The fibrous pathway adds complex plasterwork moulds and installing complex fibrous components (45 credits) and at least 16 credits of options: 92 credits minimum. 307 guided learning hours, 920 hours total qualification time. Nothing is taught: each unit is evidenced from your own work.
The four units every pathway completes (31 credits)
- A/503/2772 Confirming work activities and resources for an occupational work area in the workplace (10 credits)
- M/503/2915 Developing and maintaining good occupational working relationships in the workplace (8)
- R/503/2924 Confirming the occupational method of work in the workplace (11)
- A/503/1170 Conforming to general health, safety and welfare in the workplace (2)
Solid plastering
- Pathway units: H/600/7875 Producing complex internal solid plastering finishes in the workplace (27) and T/600/7878 Producing complex external rendering finishes in the workplace (27)
- Plus at least 14 credits of options: H/600/7696 Installing direct bond dry linings (15), Y/600/7713 Installing mechanically fixed plasterboard (14), D/600/7891 Running in situ mouldings (25)
- 99 credits minimum. For the site plasterer whose work is float and set, render systems and the difficult backgrounds and details
Fibrous plastering
- Pathway units: T/600/7895 Producing complex plasterwork moulds in the workplace (27) and R/600/7905 Installing complex fibrous plaster components in the workplace (18)
- Plus at least 16 credits of options: D/600/7891 Running in situ mouldings (25), H/600/7908 Repairing complex fibrous plaster components (16)
- 92 credits minimum. For shop and site fibrous work: enriched cornices, panels, domes and restoration
Additional units in the specification
- A/600/7882 Producing granolithic paving work in the workplace (16)
- R/600/7886 Producing specialised plasterer's surfaces in the workplace (29)
- GQA list these outside the two pathways. Your assessor confirms the exact unit list on registration, including whether either counts towards your options
Method of assessment
How the Level 3 plastering 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 lead, your assessor watches you work 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 solid or fibrous, whether you have enough live work at this level to evidence it, and whether your role is still inside the Level 2.
2. Register with GQA
We register you with GQA under qualification number 601/4322/8 on your pathway. 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, the drawings and specifications you worked from, material take-offs and delivery notes, job sheets, witness testimony from the site manager, the RAMS and method statements you briefed, toolbox talk records, the CoSHH sheets for your materials. Your assessor tells you exactly what each unit needs.
4. Workplace observation
Your assessor comes to the job and watches you work: setting out, confirming the method with the site manager, producing the complex finish or running the mould, 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: why that system on that background, how you sequence a complex job, what you do when the specification or the drawings will not work.
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 Gold Skilled Worker card.
After the qualification
Getting the Gold card, not just the certificate
The qualification is only half of it. The Gold Skilled Worker card, the one CSCS used to call the Advanced Craft card, 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. 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 Gold card: that 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 Occupational Work Supervision alongside it if you run a gang
Level 3 NVQ Plastering FAQs
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, which is what CSCS and main contractors want from a plasterer on the Gold card.
The Level 2 is assessed on plastering to a commercial standard on your own. The Level 3 is assessed on the complex work and on leading the job: confirming the method and the materials, complex internal and external finishes or complex moulds, and dealing with the site manager and the other trades. You do not need the Level 2 first. If that is your week, the Level 3 records it. If someone else sets out and takes the lead, the Level 2 is the honest fit. The initial assessment on this page tells you which before you pay.
No. There is no classroom and no exam. Everything is assessed on the plastering you already do, through photographs and documents from your own jobs, an observation of you working 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 plasterers finish inside a few months alongside the job, and someone with a phone full of photographs from recent complex work can be quicker.
The Gold Skilled Worker card, which CSCS used to call the Advanced Craft card, valid five years. 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. It is the trade card, not the Gold Supervisor card, which needs a supervision qualification.
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: the Gold card follows the certificate.
Photographs of each job at stages, the drawings and specifications you worked from, material take-offs and delivery notes, job sheets, witness testimony from the site manager, the RAMS and method statements you briefed, toolbox talk records and the CoSHH sheets for your materials. Your assessor maps each one to a unit and tells you what is missing, and anything you cannot evidence yet is planned around your next job.
Yes. Employers can be invoiced and can put several plasterers through as one booking. A CITB grant may be available to CITB registered employers, and we check what applies before you commit. Self employed plasterers 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 plasterer already doing complex and restoration work 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.