13.2 Licensing Classes & Worker Duties

Licensing Classes & Worker Duties

Quick Answer: Hold an electrical work licence to perform electrical work as an individual within your class and conditions. If a business contracts to do electrical work for others, it also needs an electrical contractor licence. Unlicensed electrical work, work outside class, and unsupervised work beyond what the Act/Regulation allow are compliance failures — not paperwork delays.

Two Licences, Two Jobs

Queensland’s regime deliberately splits personal competence from business contracting authority:

You can be a highly competent licensed electrician employed by a licensed contractor and still not be the contractor licence holder. Conversely, a company can hold a contractor licence only if it meets ESO requirements (including having appropriately licensed people actually do the work).

Exam failure pattern

Stem: “Sam just got an electrical work licence. Sam’s new sole-trader business can immediately advertise ‘fully licensed electrical contracting’ without any further licence.”

Correct reasoning: Sam’s work licence covers Sam performing work of that class. Contracting as a business for electrical work generally requires the contractor licence as well. Treating them as one card is wrong.

Who May Perform Electrical Work?

Under the Act’s licensing scheme, electrical work must be performed by a person who is authorised — typically:

• A holder of an electrical work licence of the appropriate class, working within conditions and restrictions on that licence; or
• A person working under a recognised training / apprenticeship arrangement with the supervision the law and licence conditions require; or
• A person covered by a restricted electrical work licence or other specific authorisation for defined tasks only (for example certain equipment-limited work), always within that narrow scope.

What you must not do:

• Perform full electrical installation work on a “mate’s rates” basis without holding the correct licence.
• Supervise in name only while an unlicensed person does the skilled work.
• Stretch a restricted licence into unrestricted electrician work.
• Assume an interstate licence automatically equals a Queensland work licence without mutual recognition / application steps the ESO publishes.

Apprentices and trainees

Apprentices learn by doing supervised electrical work as part of a formal training contract. Supervision is a safety and legal control, not a courtesy. Capstone and workplace culture both expect you to know that “the apprentice was careful” does not replace licensed supervision where the law requires it.

Duties of Licensed Electrical Workers

Holding an electrical work licence creates ongoing obligations. For exam purposes, group them as follows.

1. Stay inside class and conditions

Section themes in the Act require licence holders to comply with conditions and restrictions on the licence. If your licence is restricted to certain equipment or contexts, do not take unrestricted installation work. If a condition requires supervision arrangements, follow them.

2. Work electrically safely

Licensed work must be performed so that persons and property are electrically safe. That duty connects directly to AS/NZS 3000 design and Section 8 verification: defective MEN links, missing RCD additional protection where required, wrong polarity, and energising untested circuits are not “style preferences” — they are safety failures with regulatory consequences.

3. Competence and honesty about scope

Accept jobs you are licensed and competent to complete. Declining work outside your class is professional compliance, not weakness. Fabricating competence or borrowing someone else’s licence identity is a serious integrity breach.

4. Documentation and testing interfaces

Where the Regulation requires testing before connection/energisation and certificates to customers (Section 13.3), licensed workers operating under a contractor must support those obligations. Leaving a site “live” without required testing because “the painters were waiting” is exactly the behaviour the legislation targets.

Duties Around the Worker — PCBU and Contractor Themes

The Act also places duties on persons conducting a business or undertaking and on electrical contractor licence holders. Exam-relevant themes include:

• Ensuring workers who perform electrical work are appropriately licensed for the work assigned.
• Not directing or allowing unlicensed persons to perform electrical work that requires a licence.
• Ensuring the way electrical work is performed is electrically safe, and that negligence/incompetence in performance is not tolerated as a business model.
• Giving required notices/certificates about electrical work (expanded in 13.3).
• Maintaining insurance and other contractor-licence conditions where the ESO and Regulation require them for contractor licence holders.

A licensed electrician working for a contractor still has personal licence duties; the contractor entity has parallel business duties. Markers like questions that force you to assign responsibility correctly rather than saying “someone should have been careful.”

Restricted Work and Specialty Pathways (Awareness)

Queensland also uses restricted electrical licensing for defined scopes (for example certain appliance or equipment work, or specialised testing pathways where the ESO authorises them). The teaching rule for capstone candidates aiming at the full electrician pathway is:

• Know that restricted ≠ unrestricted electrician.
• Know that test-and-tag for others can attract its own contractor/restricted licensing expectations under ESO administration.
• Do not treat a short course certificate alone as a full electrical work licence.

Network Interface Duties Awareness

When your work touches the point of supply, metering, or service equipment, remember Energex/Ergon rules and seals. Licensed electrical workers still must not interfere with distributor assets outside authorised arrangements. Licence authority to work on the consumer’s installation is not a blank cheque to alter network service fuses or metering without the correct process.

Capstone Application — Scenario Drill

Scenario A: A homeowner asks an apprentice to “just add two power points this weekend” with no licensed supervisor on site.
Analysis: Likely unlawful/unauthorised electrical work and a supervision failure. Stop; arrange licensed supervision or a licensed worker.

Scenario B: A licensed electrician employed by a contractor completes a switchboard upgrade. The business has let its contractor licence lapse but still invoices as an electrical contractor.
Analysis: Individual work-licence status does not cure a missing contractor licence for the contracting business. The business side is non-compliant.

Scenario C: A worker holds only a restricted licence for a narrow equipment class but accepts a full house rewire.
Analysis: Outside licence class/conditions — refuse or obtain the correct licence pathway first.

Bridge Forward

Once you know who may work, Section 13.3 explains how completed work is evidenced: certificates of testing and safety / testing and compliance, retention periods, and the duty to test before energising or connecting. Section 13.4 then takes those safety expectations onto construction and demolition sites under AS/NZS 3012.