How do I qualify to become a Health and Safety Trainer? The qualifications required to teach accredited health and safety awards and become a health and safety instructor have changed over the last couple of years.  You can no longer teach accredited health and safety with a health and safety trainer award, as this will not be accepted by any of the UK awarding bodies.  

Teaching Qualification

First and foremost if you want to be a trainer you will need to have an entry-level teaching qualification. The PDLSG – Planning and Delivering Learning Sessions to Groups Award or the ETA – Level 3 Award in Education and Training qualification gives the teaching award accepted by all awarding bodies. This course is nationally accredited and by its conclusion will allow the successful candidate to teach any subject they have experience in.

Health and Safety Qualification

Ok, so you now have a teaching qualification either PDLSG or ETA that proves your competence as a trainer. What’s next is to match it up with some relevant experience. The easiest way to do this is to obtain the Level 3 Health and Safety Award, but you can also qualify with a Health and Safety CPD or additional Health and Safety E-Learning on top of the health and safety trainer award. Holding the teaching qualification and current health and safety experience will allow you to teach the following courses:

• Health and Safety Level 1 Awards
• Health and Safety Level 2 Awards
• Fire Safety Level 1 or 2 Awards

It’s best to also complete the health and safety award first to gain experience.

Insurance

Trainers should take out public liability insurance in case a member of the public blames you for causing damage or injury. Alongside professional indemnity insurance in case a member of the public/client accuses you of making a mistake within your work. Both cost about £120 per year. Best to stay away from live fire demonstrations as its a high risk as well as very costly for insurance.

Equipment

You will need some basic fire safety equipment to be able to provide your own courses. The below list of equipment is everything you will need:

• Health and Safety Fire Extinguisher for demonstration
• Health and Safety PowerPoint (free on trainer courses)
• Projector for Powerpoint presentations

Health and Safety Trainer Courses with Teaching Award

If you don’t have a teaching award one of the cheapest 3 days courses from Abertay provide everything you need just click the link below to become an approved Health and Safety trainer with includes the PDLSG teaching award

1. Teaching Qualification
2. Health and Safety experience (or professional exemption)
3. Insurance
4. Equipment

Accredited Health and Safety Certifications

Once you have all the above, you then need to apply to one of the awarding bodies to apply to become an approved centre so that you can gain accredited health and safety certifications for the candidates you then teach. There are many awarding bodies out there but one of the most reasonable for costs is SafeCert Awards. They cost 295 for centre approval with health and safety certification at around 5 pounds each.