Street Works

Under the New Roads and Street Works Act (1991) (NRSW) the installation, renewal, maintenance, and inspection of underground apparatus in any street or road must be undertaken by competent people. The Street Works scheme is a recognised licence to practice showing competence in the excavation and reinstatement of the road/highway. It allows competent persons who are in possession of a valid Street Works card to be in control of works being carried out.

The Act requires a qualified operative to be on site at all times, when street works are in progress.  It also requires that the site is supervised by a person who holds the relevant supervisor certificates.
SQA offers a complete suite of Street Works qualifications for operatives and supervisors working on the roads/highways. These qualifications meet the legislative requirements that apply to your main country of work across all devolved nations.

These are grouped together into Group Awards (Wales and Northern Ireland), stand-alone units (England/Scotland), each of which has defined Key Certificates that must be held. 

Legislation covering each of the devolved nations can be found here – Scotland, England, Northern Ireland, and Wales.

There are 32 units (16 Initial Units and 16 Re-assessed units) covered by the scheme and anyone acting as a qualified operative or supervisor must hold the correct units for the activities they cover.

Awards for England and Scotland

Awards for Wales and Northern Ireland

Unit information for this qualification is available on our Unit Search.

Qualification information, updates and reports

Use the tabs below to open each section individually. Alternatively you can show all the sections.

These qualifications are offered at SQA recognised assessment centres, details of which can be obtained from:

Centre enquiries, Call 0303 333 0330

General enquiries form, T: Call 0345 279 1000

For more information email our Construction team

When do my certificates expire?

Street Works certificates are valid for 5 years after which they require to be renewed as per the legislation covering your main country of work. For England and Scotland, it is via Re-assessment and for Wales and Northern Ireland it is Re-registration.

What is Re-assessment? (England and Scotland)

Candidates attend a training/assessment centre to undertake a series of multiple-choice on-line examinations covering each of the certificates they currently hold. 

The examinations contain 20 questions with a pass mark of 80%.  There is no training element to these, but a candidate can choose to undergo training if they so wish, prior to the examinations.

What is Re-registration? (Wales and Northern Ireland)

For candidates working in Wales and Northern Ireland, there is no multiple-choice examination. 

Candidates submit an application form, along with the relevant fee and a passport style photograph, to the Street Works Qualifications Register and their certificate registration will be renewed for a further 5 years.

Renewal is only permitted up to a maximum of 3 months after the current certificate expiration date. If left any later than this, Operatives and Supervisors can either undergo the initial assessment again or undergo Re-assessment as in England and Scotland.

If they choose to use Re-assessment to update their certificates, they will no longer be able to Re-register as before and must continue to Re-assess in the future.

These documents provide information on the requirements of each of the Street Work Schemes. They will assist you to ensure you meet and continue to meet the necessary criteria.

Alongside our standard quality assurance processes for Street Works Qualifications, we also carry out enhanced quality assurance arrangements to comply with qualification and regulatory requirements. These additional measures comprise of two distinct components: unannounced activity and indirect claim status.

Unannounced activity

SQA undertakes unannounced activity to ensure that standards and conditions of assessments are being met and maintained.

Centres delivering assessments for these qualifications must advise SQA a minimum of 5 working days prior to the assessment taking place by completing the MS Form available in the Quality Assurance section of the website.

You will also find further information and guidance on the unannounced activity process within the Quality Assurance pages.

Indirect Claim Status

Indirect claim status will be applied to centres coming forward for approval for Street Works Qualifications, either as a first time SQA centre, or as an existing SQA approved centre.

In practice, this means that prior to certificating candidates, a successful qualification verification activity has to take place. Further information and guidance on the indirect claim status process is available in the Quality Assurance section of the website

Queries on the assessment

If you have a query regarding any of the questions or answers on the Street Works online assessment, please complete the  HAUC (UK) Assessment Comment Form (41 KB) and email our Construction team to investigate and raise it with HAUC(UK).