Shape your future with skills that last a lifetime.
The NQ Carpentry and Joinery (Pre-Apprenticeship Level 5) course provides the hands-on skills, technical knowledge, and confidence you need to begin your career as a Carpentry or Joinery Apprentice.
You’ll develop essential craft skills in bench joinery, site joinery, and repair work, along with transferable construction knowledge and problem-solving abilities. The course also includes Health & Safety training and Construction Skills Certification Scheme (CSCS) preparation, helping you work safely and effectively on site.
Delivered through a mix of classroom, digital, and practical workshop learning, this course equips you for employment, further study, or an apprenticeship in the construction sector.
This course is ideal if you:
ℹ️ Please note that while we aim to prepare you as much as possible, an apprenticeship is not guaranteed after the course, as this is up to the employers.
You’ll gain a strong foundation in joinery and construction through practical and theory-based learning.
Key Learning Areas
This course is delivered through blended learning, combining classroom study with digital and hands-on practical sessions in the workshop.
There are no formal qualifications required, however you should have:
✅ A genuine interest in carpentry, joinery, or woodworking.
✅ The motivation to develop skills and progress to an apprenticeship.
✅ A willingness to participate fully in both classroom and workshop learning.
ℹ️ Due to Health & Safety, Awarding Bodies stipulations or Legislation set by Governing Bodies - you must be 16 years old at the start of this course.
ℹ️ If you have already completed an NQ Construction Pre-Apprenticeship course, you are not eligible to apply.
ℹ️ For this course, if English is not your first language
This qualification opens the door to a range of skilled trade and entry-level roles within the construction industry, including:
🪚 Carpenter or Joiner Apprentice
🪵 Bench Joiner
🧰 Site Joiner or Fitter
🏗 Construction or Maintenance Operative
🧾 Trade Counter or Materials Assistant
With further study and experience, you could progress to senior roles such as Master Joiner, Site Supervisor, or move into Furniture Making or Interior Fit-Out.
On completion of the course, you can progress to:
You’ll leave with the practical skills and professional attitude employers are looking for in the modern construction industry.
I just think the variety, like everybody that comes in through the door, there's such a variety of students. There's a variety of work that we can do. There's just no one doing one day the same. It's like constantly changing.
Everybody's really welcoming, so it is a friendly college.
In terms of courses, there's loads of different courses available to different people.
There's from young kids from 14, 15, who maybe school isn't the route for them. They could come to college instead of going to school.
There is a couple of courses that's available, especially in the joinery department, or in the construction department, where young kids can come in, and then right through to kids leaving school, and then even adult apprentices coming in through the door
The younger ones it's about building their life skills as well as their hand skills so we're using joinery and bricklaying and other trade areas as a kind of tool where we can build a relationship with them a personal relationship and build them in confidence and everything else so that they're ready for the world to work
We've got obviously young kids at 16, 17 leaving school and unsure of what avenue they want to come down, so a lot of the skills that we build in here are transferable as well.
So in the construction industry, measuring, cutting, sewing, you can use it in joinery, bricklaying, whatever, so they can transfer these skills into other areas of work, but also into their life in general.
