What TechSafe is, and what it is not
It is a professional register held by the Institute of the Motor Industry, confirming that a named technician holds a relevant current qualification and is maintaining it. Customers and insurers use it as a check on competence.
It is not a workshop accreditation, it does not certify equipment, and it does not replace a safe system of work. A workshop cannot be TechSafe registered; its technicians can.
Levels, and what each one lets you do
Roughly, and the detail varies by awarding body:
- Level 1 and 2: awareness and routine work around an EV without accessing the high voltage system. Enough for tyres, brakes and general servicing on an EV, not enough to work on the traction system.
- Level 3: working on high voltage systems safely, including isolation, with the traction system depowered.
- Level 4: diagnosis, repair and component level work on high voltage systems, including work that requires a deeper understanding of the pack.
The practical consequence for buying equipment is that a Level 2 workshop needs the controls, the signage and the awareness, while a Level 3 or 4 workshop needs the full tooling set as well.
The equipment the qualification assumes you have
Training courses teach a procedure, and the procedure has equipment baked into it. A technician taught to isolate, prove dead and lock off cannot do any of it without:
- A CAT III or CAT IV meter and a proving unit, for the prove, test, prove sequence
- Class 0 gloves with overgloves, for the isolation step itself
- A lockout set, so the isolation holds while the work is done
- Insulated hand tools, for anything that follows
- A marked, signed area, so nobody undoes it
Sending somebody on a course and not buying the kit produces a technician who knows exactly why they should not be doing the job.
Keeping it current
TechSafe registration lapses without ongoing professional development, and an out of date registration is worth nothing to an insurer after an incident. Diary it the way you diary an MOT.
Keep the equipment records alongside the training records. Glove test logs, tool inspection, meter calibration. After an incident they are looked at together, and a workshop with training records and no equipment records is in a worse position than one with neither, because it shows the standard was known.