Experience that is
verified, not declared.
Anyone can tick a box claiming years on rotating machinery. TCAT asks your employer to say it instead, and a person at TIERA checks it before your exam entitlement unlocks.
A workflow, not a checkbox.
This costs us admin time per candidate. We accepted that deliberately: it is the only version of an experience requirement that lets us say experience was verified rather than claimed.
You enrol and submit evidence
You provide an employer or supervisor confirmation of your field experience — a named person who is prepared to stand behind it.
A person at TIERA reviews it
A reviewer checks the confirmation and records the decision, who made it and when. It is not an automated approval.
Entitlement unlocks on approval
Your exam entitlement opens only once the review passes. If it is rejected, the rejection is recorded with its reason and you are told what it was.
The verification record is kept as part of the evidence set behind your credential, alongside the attempt history and the exact content you were assessed on. Building that record from day one is what keeps a route to formal accreditation open later — which is a design decision, not a promise that it will happen.
You start where your experience puts you.
TCAT does not make an experienced analyst buy their way up from the bottom. Categories I and II are both open on verified experience alone.
- Category I
- Verified experience only. No prior TCAT category required.
- Category II
- Verified experience only. No prior TCAT category required — you do not have to sit Category I first.
- Category III
- Verified experience and a held TCAT Category II.
- Category IV
- Verified experience and a held TCAT Category III.
The gating changes at Category III on purpose. At the lower two rungs the thing that qualifies you is time spent on real machines, and TCAT should not stand in the way of someone who already has it. At the upper two, each category builds directly on the competence the one below certified, so holding it is the prerequisite.
How much experience each category requires is set alongside the syllabus and is not published yet. Neither is the sign-off form, who reviews it, or how long a review takes. We would rather leave those blank than print numbers we might have to change — every one of them will be published before enrolment opens.
What the entry check is and is not.
- It is not an accreditation process. TIERA verifying your experience is TIERA's own check for TIERA's own credential.
- It does not transfer. A TCAT entry approval is not evidence of experience for any other scheme's certification.
- It is not a background check or an identity service — it confirms field experience for the purpose of TCAT entry, nothing more.
TCAT is a TIERA-issued credential aligned with the ISO 18436-2 body of knowledge. It is not an accredited ISO certification, TIERA is not an ISO certification body, and TCAT training hours do not count towards the formal training an accredited ISO 18436 certification requires.
Not sure which category you would enter at?
Tell us what you work on and we will tell you where you would sit once the experience requirements are published.