Cskills Awards · RQF Level 2
CSkills Awards Level 2 Diploma in Highways Maintenance - Excavation Operations (QCF)
You don’t just earn this. You learn to use it, one-to-one, on your own real work.
- LevelRQF Level 2
- Total credits81
- Guided learning79 hours
- Units in this qualification17
Awarded by Cskills Awards · on the Ofqual register
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See how this course maps onto your role
Ten quick questions, one per Future Fluency, asked against this qualification rather than a generic one.
About 5 minutes · No card · Nothing to commit to
What you’ll learn
What each unit actually teaches you to do
These are the units Cskills Awards registers against this qualification. It is a catalogue, not a syllabus. Which of them you take depends on the combination the qualification requires, and that is set by the awarding body rather than by us. Every unit here is regulated, and every one you earn is yours to keep.
Building methods and construction technologyReal unit · Cskills Awards
What you'll be able to do
- Apply the principles of building methods and construction technology.
- Apply the principles of internal building work.
- Handle delivery and storage of building materials.
Carry out excavation and reinstatement of the highwayReal unit · Cskills Awards
What you'll be able to do
- Prepare to carry out the tasks.
- From given plans, locate and trace underground services
- Signing, Lighting and Guarding
- Excavate the Highway
- Reinstate the excavation to a given specification
- Complete the task.
Carry out safe working practices in constructionReal unit · Cskills Awards
What you'll be able to do
- Apply health and safety regulations, roles and responsibilities.
- Use relevant signs and safety notices.
- Apply accident, emergency and reporting procedures.
- Identify hazards on construction sites.
- Implement health and hygiene in a construction environment.
- Handle materials and equipment safely.
- Use basic working platforms.
- Work with electricity in a construction environment.
- Use personal protective equipment (PPE) correctly.
- Carry out fire and emergency procedures.
Establish work area protection and safety – highwaysReal unit · Cskills Awards
What you'll be able to do
- Install protection and safety equipment
- Move, reposition and change protection and safety equipment as the work progresses
- Remove protection and safety equipment
Excavate holes and trenchesReal unit · Cskills Awards
What you'll be able to do
- Identify different types of footway and carriageway
- Excavate in the highway
- Support and protect underground apparatus during excavation
- Identify, select and store excavated materials for reuse or disposal
Information, quantities and communicating with othersReal unit · Cskills Awards
What you'll be able to do
- Interpret and produce building information.
- Estimate quantities of resources.
- Communicate workplace requirements efficiently.
Know how to carry out safe working practices in constructionReal unit · Cskills Awards
What you'll be able to do
- Know the health and safety regulations, roles and responsibilities.
- Know the accident and emergency procedures and how to report them.
- Identify hazards on construction sites.
- Know about health and hygiene in a construction environment.
- Handle materials and equipment safely.
- Know about basic working platforms.
- Work with electricity in a construction environment.
- Use personal protective equipment (PPE) correctly.
- Know the fire and emergency procedures.
- Know about signs and safety notices.
Know how to establish work area protection and safety – highwaysReal unit · Cskills Awards
What you'll be able to do
- Install protection and safety equipment
- Remove protection and safety equipment
Know how to excavate holes and trenchesReal unit · Cskills Awards
What you'll be able to do
- Know the different footway and carriageway types and categories
- Know the most suitable working practices for excavating the highway
- Support and protect underground apparatus during excavation
- Identify, select and store excavated materials for reuse or disposal
Know how to locate and protect utility apparatus and sub-structuresReal unit · Cskills Awards
What you'll be able to do
- Read plans showing location of underground apparatus
- Identify types of underground apparatus encountered during excavation
- Know and identify the risks of, and implications of, damage to underground apparatus
- Use pipe and cable location equipment
Know how to reinstate excavation and highway surfacesReal unit · Cskills Awards
What you'll be able to do
- Select materials for backfill, sub-base, road base and surfacing layers
- Backfill excavation
- Reinstate sub-base
- Reinstate base (road base)
- Reinstate highway surfacing materials
- Dispose of surplus material
Know how to segregate the area of highway works _single carriageway roads_Real unit · Cskills Awards
What you'll be able to do
- Carry out an on-site risk assessment to establish requirements for the control of pedestrians and traffic on single carriageway roads
- Protect pedestrians, vehicular traffic and site personnel
- Provide and operate positive traffic control systems
Knowledge of building methods and construction technologyReal unit · Cskills Awards
What you'll be able to do
- Know the principles of building methods and construction technology.
- Know the principles of internal building work.
- Know about delivery and storage of building materials.
Knowledge of information, quantities and communicating with othersReal unit · Cskills Awards
What you'll be able to do
- Interpret and produce building information.
- Estimate quantities of resources.
- Communicate workplace requirements efficiently.
Locate and protect utility apparatus and sub-structuresReal unit · Cskills Awards
What you'll be able to do
- Interpret plans showing location of underground apparatus
- Identify types of underground apparatus encountered during excavation
- Assess risks of, and implications of, damage to underground apparatus
- Use pipe and cable location equipment
Reinstate excavation and highway surfacesReal unit · Cskills Awards
What you'll be able to do
- Select materials for backfill, sub-base, road base and surfacing layers
- Backfill excavation
- Reinstate sub-base
- Reinstate base (road base)
- Reinstate highway surfacing materials
- Dispose of surplus material
Segregate the area of highway works _single carriageway roads_Real unit · Cskills Awards
What you'll be able to do
- Carry out an on-site risk assessment to establish requirements for the control of pedestrians and traffic on single carriageway roads
- Protect pedestrians, vehicular traffic and site personnel
- Provide and operate positive traffic control systems
The honest bit
You’ve started things before
Most courses were built for a room full of people who aren’t you. A cohort moves on whether or not your week allowed it, and by the third week the thing you’re behind on becomes the reason you stop opening it.
There’s no cohort here, and no timetable to fall behind. Before anything starts, Zavmo asks when you’re sharpest and how long you can realistically sit down for, then builds the sessions around those answers. A bad fortnight changes your pace. It doesn’t put you behind.
And you only pay once you start learning. Searching and planning are free, and you can cancel any time — so the cost of finding out is an afternoon, not a year.
Your passport
Every credit is a stamp you keep
Level 2 credits are regulated. They don’t vanish when a subscription ends or a website closes. They travel to any employer, and Zavmo keeps the map of what you’ve earned and what’s next.
Each stamp is a real unit registered against this qualification.
Who’d teach you this

The Evidence Evaluator
Assessor
Helps you show what you can actually do, gathering the evidence that proves it as you learn.
Meet all twelve tutorsWhere this connects
Where these credits take you
A qualification is never a dead end here. See the jobs its credits open, the national occupational standards its units map to, and the future skills they quietly build.
Where this can lead
Associate Construction Safety Specialist
Your journey starts here. We're looking for someone who sees this Associate role not just as a job, but as the first step in a rewarding career dedicated to keeping people safe. We'll invest in your development, and in return, we expect your dedication and a willingness to learn and grow with us.
See the whole journey →Showing 6 roles, drawn from 10 job records mapped to this qualification.
Skills it covers
What the job actually needs. These are the standards the units are built against, in the words employers and awarding bodies already use for the work itself.
How you’ll actually learn this
One-to-one, on your own real work
A qualification is usually something done to you: sit the class, sit the exam, hope it sticks. Here it’s the opposite. You learn it one-to-one with a companion, on your own real work, and you keep going until you can use it, not just recall it.
Applied to your work in any of these jobs
- Remember
- Understand
- Apply
- Analyse
- Evaluate
- Create
Built for CSkills Awards Level 2 Diploma in Highways Maintenance - Excavation Operations (QCF)
17 units in this credential, in the order it lists them, awarded by Cskills Awards.
- Building methods and construction technology
- Carry out excavation and reinstatement of the highway
- Carry out safe working practices in construction
- Establish work area protection and safety – highways
- Excavate holes and trenches
- Information, quantities and communicating with others
and 11 more in the full unit list below.
One to one, not one to many
No two people run this the same way
A course is written once and handed to everyone. This is assembled around you, and keeps changing as it learns you. Five things it reads, and what each one changes.
- Your actual work Every unit is taught against a live piece of your own work, not a worked example from a textbook.
- What you already know The first conversation finds your starting point, so you skip what you can already do and spend the time on what you cannot.
- The conditions you learn under Not a learning-styles quiz. The evidence does not support those. The dimensions the research does back, read once and used to shape the plan.
- How far you got last time It picks up mid-thought. The tutor knows what you said, what you struggled with, and what it asked you to try.
- Which tutor suits the moment Twelve of them, each for a different kind of thinking. The one who walks you through a first idea is not the one who stress-tests it.
See how you learn, free. Eight questions, no sign-up. A directional taster; the diagnostic inside Zavmo goes deeper and keeps adapting.
Why it sticks
Most courses stop at remembering
There’s a well-known ladder of how deeply you learn something, called Bloom’s Taxonomy. Most courses get you up the first two rungs: you remember some facts, you pass a test, you forget it. Real skill lives at the top. Judging, deciding, creating. And this isn’t a generic ladder: every rung has a named Zavmo tutor who walks you up it.
- 6CreateThe Creative Catalyst
- 5EvaluateThe Evidence Evaluator
- 4AnalyseThe Analyst
- 3ApplyThe Coach
- 2UnderstandThe Connector
- 1RememberThe Builder
Where most courses leave you Where Zavmo takes you
The value
Why the companion is worth £70 a month
You’re not paying for the units. They’re regulated, and the same wherever you earn them. You’re paying for the one thing that decides whether you actually get there: a companion that makes them stick, on your real work.
That is one-to-one on this qualification, every day, on the work you already do, for £70 a month. Your first module is free, so you can see the teaching before you pay for any of it. Billed monthly, cancel any time and billing stops.
Earned on your own work, taught to the top.
Everything you just read, learned one-to-one on the job you already do. Your first module is free, so you can see the teaching before you pay for any of it.
Build my plan, freeNo card. See how this qualification maps onto your role and meet the tutors who’d teach it, free. The learning begins when you subscribe. It’s £70 a month, billed monthly. Cancel any time and billing stops.