Connected Competence proves your ongoing base technical competence
Connected Competence is the Engineering Construction Industry’s agreed approach to gaining and demonstrating ongoing base technical competence. It allows you to showcase your technical skills through the demonstration of technical trade test competencies. The resulting assurance is now required by many client and contractor organisations as the preferred approach to assuring transferable technical competence, against a recognised standard.
What you have to do:
- View the industry role profile and the knowledge, skills and technical competencies relevant to your trade discipline(s)
- Arrange your technical test, either through your employer or direct with national test centres via Book your test
- Complete your test(s) and receive your digital badge(s)
- Share your digital badge competencies with current and future employers
Why do I need it?
Connected Competence is for time-served and / or experienced workers who will likely have achieved a base standard of technical competence at a certain time in their career.
Connected Competence assures you remain current and up-to-date with your technical knowledge and skills and can evidence this to prospective employers.
Working in the engineering construction industry can involve hazardous environments, and if the job isn’t done properly, you and your colleagues could be at risk. By everyone being up-to-date with Connected Competence, all involved are assured they are working from a safe standard and demonstrating current technical competence.
What’s more, it gives you ownership of your skills and your achievements. Once you have completed Connected Competence, you will have access to an online record which you can share with prospective employers, meaning it stays with you until your currency of competence is refreshed (every 3–4 years).
What is involved?
You will need to complete a technical test or series of technical tests at a test centre, which are based on practical, common activities within your trade.
Once successfully completed, you will be Connected Competence-certified for 3–4 years, depending on your specialist trade. At the end of this period, you will renew your current competence by re-sitting the technical test(s).
The tests are set to demonstrate base technical knowledge and skill and there is no increase in difficulty – the goal of these assessments is to prove base, standardised and continuous technical competence.
The benefits of Connected Competence to workers from John Boland, Unite the Union
John Boland, Regional Officer at Unite the Union, explains why Unite and the rest of the offshore trade unions have supported Connected Competence from the start.
He shares the benefits of the programme to workers and how temporary workers can take advantage of a voucher scheme to cover the costs of the tests.
Leading companies already using Connected Competence
Transferable skills and credentials
Showcase your skill! Connected Competence is transferable between sectors. You’ll be able to prove you’re technically competent to transfer from working in one job role to another as your employer or the industry evolves.
You’ll have full ownership of your assured skill.
Recognition of current competence will move with you, be it when you change jobs with your employer within a sector, or transfer to another one.
Your technical competency is valid for 3–4 years, depending on your trade specialism. After this time, you only need to undertake the technical tests again to continue to show your demonstrate ongoing competency and for it to be assured against a recognised standard.
What's next?
Read your role profile
View the industry role profile and the knowledge, skills and technical competencies needed for that role.
Role disciplines and profilesConnected Competence in a nutshell
This video shares how Connected Competence helps workers to have their technical competence recognised and is supporting them to demonstrate their transferable skills between and across all sectors in the engineering construction industry.
It gives an outline of the tests at national test centres and site-based assessments and what these assessments involve. It explains how workers retain ownership of their competence achievements and how prospective employers can validate these easily to save time and money duplicating tests that they may require before a worker can start on site.
It also shares the safety benefits of everyone working to the same base technical standard and how this aligns to the HSE’s best practice definition of competence – which is performing activities to a recognised standard on an ongoing basis.