Site Supervisor NVQ Level 4

Not quite. Level 4 on the Regulated Qualifications Framework is the same level as the first year of a degree or a higher education certificate. It is a competence qualification rather than an academic one, so it proves you can supervise rather than that you have studied it, which is what CSCS and principal contractors want from a supervisor.

The Level 3 Occupational Work Supervision is assessed on supervising one trade gang: confirming the method, the resources and the safety of that gang's work. The Level 4 is assessed on running a package or a section: planning activities and resources, coordinating several gangs or subcontractors, controlling programme, quality, plant and cost. Both lead to the same Gold Supervisor card. The initial assessment on this page tells you which one your week evidences before you pay.

The one that matches the site you supervise now, because that is where the evidence comes from. Main contractor, groundworks and civils is Building and Civil Engineering. Term maintenance, resurfacing and street works is Highways Maintenance. Housebuilding is Residential Development. Listed and traditional buildings is Traditional and Heritage Building. Underground works is Tunnelling. Energy efficiency and PAS 2035 work is Retrofit. The initial assessment works it out from what you click.

No. There is no classroom and no exam. Everything is assessed on the work you already supervise, through a portfolio of your own documents, an observation of you working and a professional discussion with your assessor, mostly by Zoom or Teams.

The Gold Supervisor card, valid five years. You need the Level 4 certificate plus a pass in the CITB Health, Safety and Environment test for Specialist Supervisory, 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 Occupational Work Supervision gets 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, 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.

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 supervisors finish inside six to nine months alongside the job, and someone with a full site file and the time to sit down with it can be much quicker.

Documents you already produce: daily briefing and toolbox talk records, permits to work, lookaheads and short term programmes, inspection and test records, plant allocation sheets, delivery notes and call-offs, site diaries, RAMS you agreed, plus photographs and video. 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 site and your assessor plans the units around what your next package will produce. Anything you cannot evidence yet is something we plan with you and your employer. Registration with GQA runs long enough to cover it.

Yes. Employers can be invoiced and can register several supervisors as one booking. CITB grant may be available to CITB registered employers for this qualification, and ELCAS funding if you are a service leaver. Interest free instalments are available if you are paying yourself.

£1,445 + 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 site supervisor already running sections of work 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.

The Gold Supervisory card. CSCS want an approved Level 3 or Level 4 NVQ in a supervisory subject together with a pass on the CITB Health, Safety and Environment test at Specialist Supervisory level, taken within the two years before you apply. The Level 4 Diploma in Construction Site Supervision is one of those approved qualifications. It does not lead to the Black Manager card; that route starts at Level 6.