City and Guilds 0039-20 Chainsaw Maintenance and Cross-Cutting: what the handbook says

This page reports what the official source says. It is not legal advice: ask the office named here. The pages used are the City and Guilds NPTC handbook for the award and the Health and Safety Executive leaflet on chainsaws. The 0039-20 award is the first of the ground-based chainsaw certificates of competence. The guide on chainsaw and tree work tickets by country lists it by name beside the other UK codes. This page goes into the handbook.

At a glance

Item	What the official source says
Awarding body	City and Guilds, under the NPTC name
Title	Level 2 Certificate of Competence in Chainsaw Maintenance and Cross-Cutting
City and Guilds number	0039-20
Ofqual number	603/7353/2
Guided learning hours	16, with a total qualification time of 19 (handbook version 1.7, December 2025)
Age	16 or over
Grading	Met or not met
Status in the 2026 list	Open to certification, registration expiry December 31, 2027, certification expiry December 31, 2030

What the handbook says it covers

The handbook says the award is for people who operate chainsaws as part of work in arboriculture, forestry or other industries. It lists the content as risk assessment, emergency planning, legislation, industry best practice, the maker's recommendations for chainsaw maintenance, battery powered machine maintenance, the individual components, the guide bar and chain, reassembling the saw and cutting system, waste disposal, personal protective equipment, biosecurity, environmental considerations, cross-cutting timber, moving and stacking timber, and working methods.

The NPTC scheme page for the award adds scope notes. It says the saws covered are those used in aerial and ground work, and the work is carried out in a workshop or a woodland setting. Cross-cutting covers timber under low and moderate tension, such as fallen branches, tops and tree sections, and does not cover the extreme tensions found in windblown trees. The severing of root plates is excluded. See the NPTC scheme page for 0039-20.

Entry requirements

The handbook sets a minimum age of 16 and no other entry requirement. Its page of progression ideas names the felling award, 0039-21, as a next step. The handbooks for 0039-21, 0039-23, 0039-25, 0039-30, 0039-31, 0039-32, 0039-33, 0039-34, 0039-35 and 0039-37 each name 0039-20 as something a candidate has to hold first, so this award is the base of the ground-based and aerial chainsaw ladder.

Assessment

The handbook describes one assessment type: a one to one practical assessment with oral questioning by an approved City and Guilds NPTC assessor. Grading is met or not met. The handbook says the practical observation and oral questioning should take between 1 and 2 hours. Candidates have to finish within 24 months of the date of initial registration, and the handbook says registration is valid for two years. The assessor has to hold a current First Aid at Work certificate, according to the unit text.

Refresher and renewal

The Health and Safety Executive leaflet Chainsaws at work (INDG317) says all chainsaw operators should do regular refresher or update training. It suggests every two to three years for occasional users and every five years for full-time users. FISA's training guide 805, updated August 2025, says INDG317 recommends three to five years. It gives its own recommendation of recorded refresher or update training at least every five years for most machinery work, chainsaw and aerial tree work included. The two documents word the interval differently, and both are recommendations.

City and Guilds runs a separate CPD module for refreshers, 0041-01, at Level 2 (Ofqual number 610/6048/3, 7 guided learning hours, practical examination graded pass or fail). Its handbook, version 2.0 of August 2025, names 0039-20 as the entry requirement and says equivalent regulated certificates from other awarding organisations, and equivalent legacy City and Guilds certificates, are acceptable. It says a fail in the module does not invalidate the certificate behind it, and that employers or people commissioning work may ask for evidence of training within the INDG317 intervals before work starts.

The handbook for this award gives no expiry period for the certificate. Its two-year figure is the length of a registration to take the assessment.

Old codes

The City and Guilds NPTC factsheet lists CS30.1 and CS30.2 against the older Level 2 awards in chainsaw maintenance (0020-01, 0020-09), cross-cutting (0020-02) and the combined award (0020-03, 600/6161/3, 23 guided learning hours). The 2026 list shows all four as closed to certification, with certification expiry December 31, 2021. None of the pages read states that 0039-20 replaces them. The lookup page old NPTC chainsaw codes and the awards that replaced them sets out what is and is not stated.

The Lantra Awards award with a similar name

Lantra Awards has its own Level 2 Award in Chainsaw Maintenance and Cross-cutting, Ofqual number 600/5701/4, in its ground-based chainsaw specification. The specification says there are no prerequisites and gives a total qualification time of 26 hours. It is a separate qualification from the City and Guilds one.

Contains public sector information published by the Health and Safety Executive and licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.