Bricklaying Courses

Bricklaying Courses are an increasingly popular choice for school leavers as well as adult career changers. You only need to look at the situations vacant in the Construction Industry section to see that Bricklayers are in demand and command a very high wage.

This is great news if you are considering Bricklaying Courses because once you have been trained finding work should be easy and your earning potential high.

There are a number of different routes you can take when considering Bricklaying Courses, where you start depends whether you are a school leaver or adult career changer.

For School Leavers, the best route is to find a Bricklaying Apprenticeship and sign up to the local Bricklaying Course at a College. Here they will teach you from scratch all the skills needed to begin your career as a bricklayer, usually the qualification you will be working towards is the City & Guilds 6218 Bricklaying Certificate. This Bricklaying Qualification can be combined with an apprenticeship so that typically you will attend college 2-3 days a week and be working for a building company for the remainder of the week. Note however that to start a college bricklaying course you do not necessarily have to have an apprenticeship in place.

The course will usually last for two years after which you will hopefully move into full time employment working as a bricklayer. You can also progress to the NVQ Level 2 Bricklaying Course.

For career changers the options are slightly different, it is unlikely that you will be able to dedicate two years of study without receiving an income so you may wish to consider a fast track Bricklaying Course.

To begin, there are numerous Bricklaying Training Centres offering starter courses, these can be as short as two weekend or a five day course which is a great way to get the basic skills needed in a very short space of time.

Having attended one of these short courses you may wish to commence work as a self employed person or progress to a more formal qualification route. If you continue then you will usually want to aim at the City & Guilds 6218 Bricklaying Certificate, this is the same qualification as mentioned above but on a fast track and will typically take you 5-7 weeks on a full time 9-5 Monday to Friday course. This is an intensive track and it is suggested that self study and revision is carried out in the evenings to give you the best chance of success. Although you may find a local training centre, most have links to nearby hotels and many people prefer this as they can immerse themselves completely into the study without the distractions of home life during the week.

The City & Guilds 6218 Bricklaying Course can be started without any prior knowledge or experience as a bricklayer. However, you should consider that to work as a bricklayer requires hands on practical skills as well as being physically demanding and working outside in all weathers. So you should already have an aptitude for practical skills and enjoy this environment.

To achieve the City & Guilds Qualification you will need to successfully complete 9 units of which 7 are mandatory, more details of this can be found in the 6128 course outline.

Once you have completed these you will be awarded your qualification from your training provider.

Because this course is college or training provider based, you must realise that employers and the construction industry will not recognise you as a Qualified Bricklayer. In order to become qualified you need to demonstrate that the skills learnt in the classroom and training environment can be applied to the workplace. In order to do this you will need to complete the NVQ Level 2 Bricklaying.

The NVQ level 2 Bricklaying consists of correctly applying and demonstrating the skills covered in the City & Guilds 6128 Course in the workplace, an assessor will visit you on site and assess your work as well as the preparation, health and safety, customer relations and good working practices on a range of competencies. Usually 6-10 assessments will be needed to demonstrate a cross section of skills and the time frame can range from 6 months to a couple of years, this will depend largely on the type of work you are doing