Skip to main content
TheSkylane
Post a role →
Interview prep · Engineering

Engineers and MRO

Licence categories, the experience matrix, and the recency rule that catches returners.

Published by UK Civil Aviation Authority · read 31 August 2026

The one candidate type where the entry requirement is written in law rather than set by an employer. Read the experience matrix against your own logbook before an interview, because the interviewer will.

  1. Entry requirements

    4 published

    What a named publisher says you must already have. Most readers pass or fail here, and finding out on this page costs nothing.

    • Experience, B1.1, B1.3 and B2
    • Experience, A, B1.2, B1.4 and B3
    • Recency
    • The ten-year window

    Entry requirements

    Engineers and MRO

    4 requirements, all as UK Civil Aviation Authority states them.

    • Experience, B1.1, B1.3 and B2

      “5 years of practical maintenance experience on operating aircraft if the applicant has no previous relevant technical training”; 3 years with “training considered relevant by the CAA as a skilled worker”; 2 years with “completion of a basic training course approved in accordance with Annex IV” (Part-147).

      Source: UK Civil Aviation Authority · read 31 August 2026

    • Experience, A, B1.2, B1.4 and B3

      3 years with no previous relevant technical training; 2 years as a skilled worker with relevant training; 1 year with an approved Part-147 basic training course.

      Source: UK Civil Aviation Authority · read 31 August 2026

    • Recency

      “At least 1 year of the required experience shall be recent maintenance experience on aircraft of the category/subcategory for which the initial aircraft maintenance licence is sought.” This is the rule that catches people returning after time out of the industry.

      Source: UK Civil Aviation Authority · read 31 August 2026

    • The ten-year window

      Experience “shall have been acquired within the 10 years preceding the application”. Older experience does not count, however good it was.

      Source: UK Civil Aviation Authority · read 31 August 2026

    Requirements can change. Confirm with the employer before you apply or travel.

  2. Selection process

    3 stages

    Each stage carries its source where the publisher states one, and says so where none does.

    The licence check comes first

    For a certifying role the employer's first filter is documentary: category, sub-category, type ratings and their limitations. An interview slot is rarely offered before that reconciles.

    General shape, not published by the employer

  3. How to prepare

    1 guide

    Our guides go deeper, each written from the employer’s own pages.

    What nobody publishes: ask the employer

    • The figures above are the UK CAA's retained version of Regulation 1321/2014 Annex III. EASA member states, the UAE GCAA (CAR-66) and other authorities run closely related but separately amended texts. Check your own authority's current wording before relying on a year count.
    • This section covers the licence, not any individual employer's assessment. No airline or MRO in the directory publishes a stage-by-stage engineering selection process.

Once you are through

Open rolesWhat it paysRecruitment eventsApproved training

Sources & verification

1 official page · 1 publisher

Sources & verification

Engineers and MRO

Every requirement and stage on this page links to the page it came from.

Coaching sites and practice-test vendors are excluded by rule: several contradicted the carriers’ own pages. How we verify

Entry requirements and selection processes can change. Confirm details with the employer before attending. All roles