What does a gas engineer need before taking on an apprentice?

There is a point in a one-van business where the diary stops being the constraint and you become the constraint. Taking on an apprentice is the usual answer, and a good one: it is how the trade replaces itself. It is also the moment you stop being purely an engineer and start being an employer, which is a different job with its own rules. Here is what has to be in place first, what an apprentice can and cannot do on gas, and what the first year genuinely looks like.

What is legally compulsory before they start?

Employers' liability insurance, and it is not a formality. GOV.UK's position is blunt: you must get employers' liability insurance as soon as you become an employer, from an authorised insurer, with cover of at least £5 million. The penalties are geared to make sure it happens. You can be fined £2,500 for every day you are not properly insured, and a further £1,000 for failing to display the certificate where employees can see it or to produce it for inspectors. The certificate can be shown at the workplace, on a website or on an intranet. There is an exemption for employing only a close family member, which occasionally applies in family firms, and one for employees based outside England, Scotland and Wales.

Note what it does not replace. Employers' liability covers your liability to your employee; public liability covers your liability to customers and their property. Separate policies, separate problems, and an apprentice on site raises your exposure under both. Tell your public liability insurer you have taken someone on: a policy written for a sole trader may not answer for an employee's work.

What gas work can an apprentice actually do?

Only gas work carried out under supervision, and the responsibility for it stays with you. An apprentice is not Gas Safe registered, holds no ACS categories and cannot be sent to a job alone, cannot sign a gas safety record, and cannot make the safety decisions the record depends on. What they can do is work on gas alongside a qualified engineer of a registered business, which is precisely how the on-site portion of their training and their portfolio evidence is built. Gas Safe Register's Rules of Registration set the supervision requirements for trainees, including the registered business's obligations around records of supervised work. Read the current version rather than an insurer's or a provider's summary of it, and ring Gas Safe Register if your arrangement is unusual.

What does supervision mean in practice?

• You are accountable. Work an apprentice does under your supervision is your registered business's work, and it is your name attached to the outcome.
• The scope is the job in front of you, not the day. Supervision is not a status the apprentice carries around; it is you present and responsible on the job.
• Records matter. Keep a record of the gas work carried out under supervision, and expect to be able to produce it. It doubles as the apprentice's portfolio evidence, so it is worth capturing properly the first time.
• The certificate stays yours. Whatever they did on the job, a gas safety record is issued by the registered engineer who carried out and is competent to sign off the check.
• If a specific arrangement is not clearly covered by the rules, ask Gas Safe Register directly. It is a free phone call and it is the only source that binds you.

How are apprenticeships funded?

Better than most sole traders expect, and the rules are moving in your favour. The apprenticeship levy is paid by employers with an annual pay bill over £3 million, which will not be you. Employers below that threshold have historically paid a co-investment share of the training and assessment cost, with GOV.UK putting the current rate of co-investment at 5 per cent of the total price up to the funding band maximum, and government paying the rest. Additional payments exist on top for younger apprentices and for care leavers or those with an education, health and care plan, and further changes for smaller employers have been announced for 2026. Because that picture is in motion, check the current position on GOV.UK and ask your training provider to put the cost to you in writing before you commit.

What will the first year actually cost you?

What does the mentoring really take?

More patience than money, for about six months. Your output goes down before it goes up: you are slower on every job you narrate, and there will be a week where you wonder what you were thinking. Then something shifts. They set up before you ask, they spot the thing you were about to say, and one day they do a service properly while you are on the phone to a supplier. Engineers who enjoy the process describe the same three habits: explain why rather than what, let them do the job badly under supervision rather than watching you do it well, and give them one thing to own early, whether that is van stock, the analyser or the photographs.

Is the first apprentice worth it?

It depends almost entirely on whether you have the work. An apprentice is a multi-year investment that pays back later, so the businesses it suits are the ones already turning jobs away, with a diary consistent enough to carry a wage through a quiet February. If your work is lumpy, a subcontractor for the busy months is the honest answer. The other half of the decision is temperament: if being asked questions all day drains you, no amount of funding fixes that. What is true is that the engineers who train people end up with a business rather than a job.

How do you keep the records an employee creates?

Deliberately, because there are now two sets. The supervised gas work needs recording and producing on request, and your apprentice needs the same jobs as portfolio evidence for their ACS assessments. On paper that means writing up and filing each job twice. Manifold captures the job once on site, with photographs, readings and the certificate attached, so the record you have to keep and the evidence they have to build come out of the same entry. It is also where a second pair of hands stops being invisible in your admin: jobs, records and invoices in one place rather than in two vans and a text thread.