NVQ Level 6 Construction Contracting Operations Management

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 employers want from a manager.

Site Management is assessed on running the site: the programme on the ground, the subcontractors, the site's health and safety systems, the client on site. Contracting Operations Management is assessed on managing the contract from the office: tenders, procurement, programmes, design coordination, valuations, contract control. Both are Level 6, both are awarded by GQA and both lead to the same Black Manager card. Pick the one your week evidences. The initial assessment on this page tells you which before you pay.

Yes. The five core units are the same for everyone and the four options are where your job comes in. An estimator takes the tender and work method units. A buyer takes supply chain, procurement plan and appointing contractors. A planner takes programme of works and work methods. A QS takes contract control, cost control and valuations. A design coordinator takes project requirements, designs and production information. Your assessor confirms the four on registration.

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

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, 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 Black card: the Black 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 office based managers finish inside a year alongside the job, and someone with a full contract file and the time to sit down with it can be much quicker.

Documents you already produce: tender submissions and adjudication notes, procurement schedules and subcontract orders, programmes, valuations and final accounts, design coordination minutes, information registers, health and safety system records, appraisals and one to ones, meeting agendas and minutes. Your assessor maps each one to a unit and tells you what is missing.

You carry on from the next contract. Evidence can come from more than one project and your assessor plans the units around what your next tender or contract 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 managers as one booking, which is common across an estimating, buying or commercial department. 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.

If you manage the contract operations for one or a few projects from the office, yes. If you control projects or budgets across the business, run procurement strategy and teams of managers and advise clients and directors, your week may evidence the Level 7 Senior Management instead, at £1,895 + VAT and the same Black card. The initial assessment asks about exactly that.

£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 commercial, planning or procurement manager already doing the role 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.