Apprenticeship unit

Welding (mechanised) – Apprenticeship unit (level 2)

There are 3 training providers who offer this course. Check if a training provider can deliver this training in the learner's work location.

Information about Welding (mechanised) – Apprenticeship unit (level 2)

This apprenticeship unit is for existing welders who, with the support of their employer, need to upskill to mechanised welding.

Apprenticeship units are short, flexible training courses based on employer-designed occupational standards.

You can only enrol your existing employees in an apprenticeship unit. Employees who are already doing an apprenticeship cannot do them.

• Knowledge and skills learners will gain:
  View knowledge and skills

  Technical knowledge

  • Awareness of health and safety regulations, standards and guidance and impact on role. Control of Substances Hazardous to Health (CoSHH). Fire safety. Health and Safety at Work Act. Safety equipment: guards, signage, fire extinguishers. Safety signage. Slips, trips, and falls. Working in confined spaces. Working at height. Manual handling.
  • Safe systems of work, hazards and risks, isolation and emergency stop procedures, situational awareness.
  • Welding power sources: invertor, rectifier, transformer, alternating and direct currents and positive and negative polarities.
  • Ancillary equipment: cabling and their assembly, interconnecting communications cables, torches and tongs.
  • Welding gases and equipment: cylinder colours, regulators, storage.
  • Mechanised welding processes and techniques.
  • Welded joints: types, preparation, permanent and temporary backing.
  • Material preparation and removal methods using both powered and non-powered tools.
  • Control of weld settings.
  • Weld visual inspection, dimensional tolerances and alignment of the welded component.
  • Causes and prevention of welding defects and distortion.
  • Personal protective equipment (PPE).
  • Principles and practices of restoring the work area on completion of welding.

  Technical skills

  • Apply health and safety procedures including the use of personal protective equipment (PPE).
  • Prepare welding materials and work area: sourcing, checking and protecting.
  • Check and use or operate tools and equipment.
  • Set, modify and monitor welding controls, for example, current, arc voltage, wire feed speed, gas flow rates, polarity, mechanised tractor units.
  • Weld using processes, for example, submerged arc welding (SAW), tractor-mounted metal inert or metal active gas (MIG or MAG), tractor-mounted flux cored arc welding (FCAW), tractor-mounted or orbital tungsten inert gas (TIG), tractor-mounted or orbital plasma arc welding (PAW).
  • Weld materials in different joint configurations, for example, butt, T-butt, fillet, cladding or buttering.
  • Adapt welding techniques to weld materials in different positions, for example, down-hand, horizontal-vertical, horizontal, vertical-up, vertical-down, overhead, inclined.
  • Identify surface defects.
  • Apply visual inspection, dimensional and alignment checks.
  • Restore the work area on completion of the welding activity, for example, clean equipment and machinery, tidy the work area, return excess resources and consumables.
• Training category (sector): Engineering and manufacturing
• Training level: 2; Equal to GCSE
• Delivery hours: 90 delivery hours ; Delivery hours are the minimum amount of time a learner will spend with their instructor while on the course. This does not include coursework or self-paced activities.
• Duration: Exact duration depends on the training provider. Contact them to find out more.
• Maximum funding: £2,100 ; Maximum government funding for ; apprenticeship unit training and assessment costs.

View more information about Welding (mechanised) – Apprenticeship unit (level 2) from Skills England.