Grandfather rights have gone: what to do if your CSCS card was Industry Accreditation

For years, thousands of experienced tradespeople held a CSCS card through Industry Accreditation - what everyone on site called grandfather rights. You proved you had been doing the job, your employer signed it off, and you got the card. No NVQ, no assessment.

That route has closed. All remaining Industry Accreditation cards expired on 31 December 2024, and they cannot be renewed by that route. If your card came through IA, the only way back to a card is a nationally recognised qualification for your occupation.

Why it changed

The Construction Leadership Council asked every card scheme to make sure cards are backed by a real qualification for every occupation. The logic is straightforward: a card is supposed to tell a site manager what you are competent to do, and experience alone was never assessed against a standard.

It is worth being clear about what this is not. It is not a judgement on your ability. Somebody who has been laying bricks for thirty years is not less skilled than someone who finished an NVQ last month - the difference is only that one of them has it written down in a form the industry now insists on.

You do not have to go to college

This is the part most people get wrong, and it stops them starting.

An NVQ is not a course you sit through. There is nothing to revise and no exam at the end. It is an assessment of the work you already do: an assessor looks at evidence from your actual jobs - photographs, work records, a conversation about how and why you do things - and confirms it meets the national standard for your trade.

If you are already working, most of the evidence exists already. You are not learning the trade. You are documenting it.

What to do now, in order

Find out which qualification matches your occupation. A bricklayer, a groundworker and a dryliner all need different NVQs, and picking the wrong one wastes months.

Check whether a temporary card keeps you on site. CSCS issues temporary red cards, which are non-renewable but exist precisely so people qualifying can keep working while they do it.

Ask your employer about funding. CITB has enhanced grants available to CITB-registered employers for qualifications achieved up to 31 March 2026. If your employer is registered, a large part of the cost may not be yours at all - and that deadline is close enough to matter.

Then start. The single most expensive decision here is waiting: every month without a card is a month you may not be able to work.

How long it takes

For most trades an online NVQ assessment takes a matter of weeks rather than the year people imagine, because the timescale depends on how quickly evidence is gathered, not on a term dates calendar. If you are working full time on relevant jobs, evidence gathers itself.

If you are not sure which qualification you need, ask somebody who does this every day. A ten minute conversation is cheaper than a wrong enrolment.