Heritage Engineering Technician

On a heritage engineering technician apprenticeship course, you’ll preserve, restore, re-manufacture, service and repair historic engineering achievements.

A historical engineering technician works on a one-of-a-kind “single survivor” with significant worth but little or no supporting documentation or procedures.

You will research artefacts to understand as much as possible about their history to ensure restoration and evaluate and categorise deterioration or degradation. Then you’ll take a project and pare it down to its basic bones, meticulously documenting the components and procedures in various methods.

You will examine components for quality and wear and ensure suitable replacement choices. You’ll use your initiative to devise creative solutions to challenging and unusual technological issues.

You will also do forensic work, which often requires reverse engineering techniques to understand the rationale and processes used by the original designers and manufacturers to develop robust, credible, and safe repair plans.

You will preserve provenance and the heritage of technical innovation, development, design, and manufacture for future generations.

What you’ll learn

On a heritage engineering technician apprenticeship course, you’ll learn to:

• Use current health and safety protocols to ensure that all dangers and risks are identified and dealt with appropriately, especially in compliance with all relevant general and heritage-specific legislation.
• Disassemble and reassemble structures as required, using video and/or other recording methods to ensure information is not lost if a significant amount of time elapses between the two processes.
• Use techniques of continual improvement, such as Kaizen and Workplace Organization.
• Create, create, and implement appropriate delivery methods to complete projects within the period given.
• Use industry recognised/best practice standards at all phases of a project’s restoration to ensure that each step is done properly and has no detrimental effect on future operations and progress.
• Plan for and get all the resources required to execute the work activity.
• Examine, remove, renovate, and reassemble components, including those for periodic adjustment, using the original or contemporary tools, techniques, processes, and equipment.
• Identify and treat various forms of corrosion, chemical reactions, and degradation.
• Apply appropriate and permitted diagnostic procedures and equipment while using logical problem-solving techniques and appropriate and authorised diagnostic procedures and equipment.
• Deal with customers to make sure their requirements and expectations are fulfilled.

What you’ll do

Your day-to-day tasks on a heritage engineering technician apprenticeship could be to:

• Work on historical artefacts that are one-of-a-kind “sole survivors” of significant historical importance but have little or no supporting documentation or procedures.
• Examine the artefact to see whether the damage or deterioration is minimal, repairable, or needs to be replaced.
• Reduce a project (or a subset of a bigger project) to its basic bones, meticulously documenting the components and procedures in various methods.
• Examine components for quality and wear, and ensure that replacement choices are appropriate for the function and comply with relevant regulations.

Entry requirements

You’ll usually need:

• 5 GCSEs at grades 9 to 4 (A* to C), or equivalent, including English and Maths, for an advanced apprenticeship.
• Apprentices without level 2 English and maths will need to achieve this before taking the end-point assessment.

Assessment methods

The End Point Assessment comprises three distinct assessment methods: 

• Knowledge Test 
• Practical Observation Tasks 
• Professional Discussion & EPA Assessor Questioning 

Apprenticeship standard

More information about the Level 3 Heritage Engineering Technician Apprenticeship standard can be found here.

Apprenticeship end point assessment

For more information about the End Point Assessment Process, please read the Institute of Apprenticeships’ information page.