Due to there being so many safety regulations when it comes to erecting scaffolding it is important for people putting the scaffolding up to be fully trained. Before becoming a scaffolder there are certain things you need to take into consideration such as your skills and interests, here are some examples of the skills and interests you should have when planning on becoming a scaffolder:

• Eye to hand – You should have excellent eye to hand co-ordination as your job would entail you following instructions correctly and for you to do this you need to be able follow your hands accurately with your eyes to ensure everything is being placed exactly where it should be.
• Physically fit – You need to be physically fit for lifting and climbing. This is because the poles and slabs of wood are so heavy you need to be able to lift them easily obviously you will have help from other members of your team but if you don’t have the ability to lift properly you could damage yourself and if working with others below you if you were to drop any of the equipment you could harm someone else.
• Working as a team – Most of the work done in the scaffolder profession is as part of a team so this is why it is important for you to be able to communicate with others easily as you will be working at heights a lot of the time and communication is a vital thing for accidents to be as minimal as possible. You would also have to work well as part of a team to be able to get all the work done correctly and efficiently, because if the scaffolding were to be put up incorrectly and were to fall when some one was up the scaffolding or if someone was underneath the scaffolding the company that erected it could be sued and the person responsible could be disciplined.
• Health and safety – You would have to be aware of all the health and safety regulations involved in scaffolding. As with any health and safety regulations they are constantly being updated so it would be of paramount importance for people working in that department to keep up to date with the changing regulations, this is for their personal safety but also for anybody working on the site with the scaffolding.

As well as this there are several courses you can take that will train you in all aspects of scaffolding work. These qualifications come in schemes; Scheme A and Scheme B. Scheme A involves several 2-3 week training sessions involving on site work and results in a NVQ level 2 qualification after around 24 months of training. Scheme B is a residential course and lasts around 42 weeks (28 weeks in year 1 and 14 in the second year). This course gives you the opportunity to go on to a higher level known as the advanced card, to take the advanced course you will need to have the basic level (NVQ level 2) and after the advanced course you will have a NVQ level 3.