Teach engineering maintenance

What maintenance and reliability covers in further education

Planned and reactive maintenance, condition monitoring, mechanical and electrical fault finding, lubrication, alignment and reliability methods.

Roles you could be considered for

• Maintenance lecturer
• Apprenticeship skills coach
• Workshop instructor

What you might teach

• Fault diagnosis
• Isolation and safe systems of work
• Condition monitoring techniques
• Planned maintenance

Skills from industry that transfer into teaching

• Breakdown response under pressure
• Shift handovers and documentation
• Coaching apprentices on site

Routes into FE teaching and qualifications

Experience across mechanical and electrical disciplines is valued. Colleges set their own qualification expectations.

How requirements differ across the UK

• England: there is no single legal teaching qualification requirement for FE, but many colleges expect staff to hold or work towards one.
• Wales: FE teachers must register with the Education Workforce Council.
• Scotland: the TQFE is the established qualification for college lecturers. Registration arrangements are changing, so check current guidance.
• Northern Ireland: colleges commonly expect lecturers to gain a recognised teaching qualification within a set period.

See our guides for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and teaching qualifications and teaching without a teaching qualification for more detail.

Funding information

Support for teacher training, such as bursaries or employer-funded qualifications, changes over time and differs by nation. We only publish funding details that we have checked against official sources. See our funding information hub.

Common questions