From mechanical fitter to multi-skilled: where to start

It's 11pm. The case packer's stopped on a "product not detected" fault. You've checked the guides, the belt, the flaps. Mechanically it's fine.

The sparky's on the other side of the site with a dead motor on the wrapper. So you wait. Forty minutes later they walk over, look at the prox, see the LED's not lighting, and find a cable that's been chafed through on the guard. Ten-minute job.

You knew it was probably the sensor. You just weren't allowed, or weren't sure, to go any further.

Most fitters have stood in that spot. More of the faults that stop a modern line are electrical now, and the engineer who can follow a fault from the mechanics into the control circuit gets the callouts. In our view, that's also the engineer sites find hardest to hire.

Supervised time is the legal route

Here's the good news. The law doesn't ask you to hold a certificate before you learn.

The Electricity at Work Regulations say nobody should do work that needs technical knowledge or experience to prevent danger, unless they have that knowledge or experience, or are under the right level of supervision for the job (regulation 16). So the route is written into the rule. You work under someone competent until you're competent yourself.

HSE's FAQs give a benchmark for what competent looks like. A completed electrical apprenticeship, with some experience after it, "is a good way of demonstrating competence for general electrical work". Specialist work, such as control system modification, "is almost certainly likely to require additional training and experience" (HSE electrical FAQs).

That tells you two things. There's no shortcut to being a full electrician. And you don't need to be one to be useful on the electrical side of a machine, as long as you know where your limit is.

Start with isolation, not the PLC

Everyone wants to learn PLCs first. We'd start somewhere duller.

Learn safe isolation properly, on the kind of kit you work on. Which isolator, which lock, how to prove dead with an approved voltage indicator, and how to prove the tester before and after. If you can't do that every time without thinking, nothing else on this list is safe to learn. We go through it step by step in safe isolation: lock off, tag out, prove dead.

Then learn basic electrical theory to the point where Ohm's law is second nature. You'll use it every shift when you're reading a meter.

Then work outwards from the machine

After that, follow the faults you already see. On most lines that means this order:

1. Sensors. Prox switches, photo-eyes, reed switches on cylinders. Learn PNP and NPN, how to read the LED, and how to test the supply and the signal. Our proximity sensor fault-finding guide is a good place to start.
2. The 24V control circuit. Fuses, the power supply, relays, contactor coils. Most of the "nothing's happening" faults live here.
3. Drawings. Learn to follow a wire from the field device to the terminal, to the card, to the address. Once you can read the drawings, you stop guessing.
4. The PLC, read only. Go online and watch the inputs change while someone moves the machine through a cycle. Don't change anything. Just learn to find the missing signal.
5. Drives. Read the fault log, understand overcurrent and overvoltage trips, and learn which parameters you must never touch.

Each step builds on the one before. A fitter who's solid on steps one to three already fixes a big share of the faults that used to mean waiting for the sparky.

Make your employer part of it

If you're on staff, you don't have to fund all of this yourself.

The Management Regulations say employers must give adequate health and safety training when someone is given a change of responsibilities, and that training must take place during working hours (regulation 13). HSE's guidance on work equipment goes further. Training "should take place during working hours and be at no cost to the employee" (HSE, training and competence).

So if your manager wants you to pick up electrical faults, that's a change of responsibilities. Ask for the training and the supervised time that goes with it, in writing.

The case for it is easy to make. Every time a line waits forty minutes for the one electrician on shift, that's lost output the manager has to explain. A fitter who can find the chafed cable cuts that wait to nothing. It also means the site isn't stuck when the electrician is off sick or on holiday. We write about that risk for managers in single-skill risk.

Formal routes if you want the paper

Supervised time builds the skill. At some point you'll also want something on paper.

The 18th Edition is the usual first ticket, because contract specs ask for it. It's a regs exam, so treat it as a door opener, not proof you can fault-find.

For a deeper route, look at an HNC part-time or an adult apprenticeship. If you're in England and paying for yourself, an Advanced Learner Loan can cover course fees. You must be 19 or older on the first day, and the course must be at level 3, 4, 5 or 6 at an approved college or training provider* (GOV.UK). Level 4, 5 or 6 courses starting on or after 1 January 2027 move to the Lifelong Learning Entitlement instead*. Ask the college which applies before you sign anything.

Know where you stop

The hardest part of going multi-skilled is saying "that's past me" with a shift manager stood behind you.

Write your limit down. Sensors and control circuits, yes. Drive parameters, no. Safety circuits, only with a controls engineer. Then stick to it, even at 3am. Regulation 16 cuts both ways. It lets you learn under supervision, and it means you shouldn't be doing work you're not competent for without it.

What to do on Monday

1. List the last ten breakdowns you were on. Mark which ones ended in the panel. That's your training plan.
2. Ask your electrician if you can shadow the next sensor or control circuit fault.
3. Ask your manager, in writing, for training to go with any electrical work you're being given.
4. Practise proving dead, tester before and after, until it's habit.

* Advanced Learner Loan age, levels and the 1 January 2027 change correct as of 11 September 2026. Check GOV.UK for the latest.