NDT Simulator & Practical NDT Training in the UK

The Atlantis Practical NDT simulator is what Atlantis describes as the first-ever online practical NDT simulation portal for practice and hands-on experience, and the United Kingdom is a country where that kind of practice earns its keep. It is an immersive, 3D, game-like platform that runs in a browser or app. A technician opens a job in a virtual NDT lab, welding workshop, aircraft hangar, oil and gas site or full-size storage tank, chooses and sets up the technique, carries out the inspection, records what was found and gets a score as soon as the job is closed. UK inspection work is unusually varied for a country of its size: North Sea production platforms and their decommissioning, a growing offshore wind fleet, refineries and chemical complexes on the Solent, the Mersey, the Humber, the Tees and Milford Haven, a nuclear estate from Sellafield to Sizewell, aerospace manufacturing from Derby to Broughton, naval shipbuilding on the Clyde and at Barrow, and a rail network that is tested by ultrasound every day. Practical NDT gives trainees, working technicians and Level IIIs a place to put hours into the methods they need without booking a lab bench or consuming a specimen.

This page is the UK hub. It maps where the work is, which simulator environments fit each part of the country, how practice sits alongside PCN and other EN ISO 9712 certification, and how to get a demo for your team. City pages with more local detail are linked where they exist.

Where the UK's NDT work is, nation by nation and region by region

Short answer: UK NDT demand clusters in six places: Aberdeen and the North Sea, the Scottish central belt, the North East and Humber energy coast, the North West nuclear and chemical belt, the Midlands and South West aerospace corridor, and the South and Welsh refinery coasts. Each leans on a different mix of methods, which is why a single practice library has to cover all twelve.

Aberdeen and the North Sea. Aberdeen remains the operational centre of UK offshore oil and gas. Platforms, subsea infrastructure and onshore terminals such as Sullom Voe, Flotta, St Fergus and Cruden Bay need corrosion monitoring, weld inspection and structural surveys, and a growing share of the work is decommissioning: checking the condition of steel that is about to be cut, lifted and brought ashore. Rope-access technicians, inspection engineers and integrity teams based in and around the city rotate offshore, and the same supply chain is moving into offshore wind foundations and substations.

The Scottish central belt. Grangemouth on the Forth is Scotland's best-known industrial site. Crude refining there ended in April 2025 and the refinery has moved to fuel import and distribution, while the wider site keeps chemical operations, tanks and pipework that still need inspection. On the Clyde, naval shipbuilding at Govan and Scotstoun produces frigates whose structural welds are inspected at every block, and Rosyth in Fife handles naval vessel assembly and maintenance. Glasgow and Edinburgh host engineering consultancies, inspection companies and university research groups in ultrasonics and NDT.

The North East, Teesside and the Humber. Teesside has a long heavy-industry history: steelmaking, the chemical parks at Wilton, Billingham and Seal Sands, and the Hartlepool nuclear station. Large regeneration and energy transition projects, including carbon capture and hydrogen schemes, are bringing new fabrication. The Tyne has offshore fabrication and subsea manufacturing yards. Further south, the Humber estuary around Immingham and South Killingholme is home to refining, gas-fired power, a major port and the onshore bases for some of the largest offshore wind farms in the world.

The North West and Cumbria. Sellafield, the Heysham power stations and the fuel facilities near Preston make this the most nuclear-heavy region in the country. Barrow-in-Furness builds the Royal Navy's submarines, where weld quality is controlled to some of the strictest standards in UK manufacturing. Stanlow refinery at Ellesmere Port, the chemical works around Runcorn and Widnes, and the Cammell Laird yard at Birkenhead add process-plant and marine work. Lancashire hosts military aircraft manufacturing at Warton and Samlesbury.

The Midlands and the South West. Derby is the centre of UK aero-engine manufacturing and also of rail rolling-stock building and submarine reactor work. Bristol and Filton host aerospace design and aerostructures, and Yeovil builds helicopters. These sites rely heavily on penetrant, eddy current and ultrasonic inspection of high-value components, and they employ NDT staff certified to aerospace schemes. The Midlands also has a dense base of castings, forgings and precision engineering suppliers.

The South, Wales and Northern Ireland. Fawley on Southampton Water is the UK's largest refinery. In Wales, Milford Haven has the Valero Pembroke refinery and two LNG import terminals, Port Talbot is changing from blast furnace to electric arc steelmaking, and Broughton in Flintshire builds wings for Airbus aircraft. Hinkley Point C in Somerset is the largest construction project in the country, with nuclear-grade welding and inspection on a huge scale. In Northern Ireland, Belfast has shipbuilding and offshore fabrication heritage and aerospace manufacturing.

Practical NDT across UK cities and regions

Short answer: two UK cities already have their own Practical NDT pages, Aberdeen and Teesside. The table below covers those and the other main UK clusters, with the simulator environments and methods that suit each one.

Aberdeen technicians spend much of their working lives offshore, where there is no spare bench time and no reference specimens to experiment on. Topsides piping corrosion, caisson and riser inspection, structural nodes and tank and vessel surveys on terminals are routine, and decommissioning adds condition checks before cutting and lifting. The Oil & Gas Site environment covers corrosion mapping with UT and PAUT, LRUT screening of pipe runs and ET on tubes, and the Storage Tank environment covers shell thickness surveys and MFL floor screening for terminal work. Between hitches, a browser-based job is a practical way to keep a less-used method fresh. Atlantis also runs ASNT SNT-TC-1A training for Aberdeen employers that work to US codes or for US-owned operators.

Teesside combines old and new industry. The chemical parks need in-service inspection of pressure equipment and piping, with IRIS on exchanger tubes and PMI on alloy lines during shutdowns. New energy transition projects and fabrication yards bring weld inspection of new-build structures and pipework, where PAUT and TOFD in the Welding Workshop are the relevant practice. Trainees joining local inspection companies can start with guided NDT Lab fundamentals before moving on to plant jobs.

The Humber has two refineries in its recent history, gas-fired power, a very large port and offshore wind operations and maintenance bases. Plant inspection skills (thickness surveys, tank floor screening, exchanger tubes and alloy verification) are the core of the local workload, and the Oil & Gas Site and Storage Tank environments match them closely.

The Clyde and the Forth are dominated by naval shipbuilding and by the transition at Grangemouth. Shipyard weld inspection relies on UT, PAUT, MT and RT, all of which can be practised in the Welding Workshop on butt and fillet joints with realistic flaw types. Tank and terminal work at Grangemouth suits the Storage Tank environment. Atlantis has ASNT training pages for Glasgow and Edinburgh for employers who need SNT-TC-1A personnel.

Cumbria and Lancashire bring nuclear and defence quality regimes, where inspection techniques are tightly qualified and technicians must be consistent from shift to shift. Simulator practice does not replace those qualifications, but it gives staff extra repetitions on weld volumetric inspection and surface methods. Warton and Samlesbury aircraft work fits the Aircraft Hangar environment.

Derby, Bristol, Yeovil and Broughton are the aerospace heart of the UK. Penetrant inspection of engine components, eddy current around fastener holes, UT of composite and metallic structures and visual inspection of airframes all map to the Aircraft Hangar environment, which has 54 jobs. Rail work around Derby adds UT of axles and wheels, practised in the NDT Lab.

The Solent, Mersey and Milford Haven refinery and terminal coasts share the same core workload as the Humber, plus LNG storage and marine structures. Fawley, Stanlow and Pembroke turnarounds draw contractors from across the country, and a common scenario set helps supervisors check readiness before mobilisation. Atlantis also has an ASNT training page for London, where many engineering and inspection head offices sit.

Environments and methods that match UK work

Short answer: the Oil & Gas Site and Storage Tank environments match the North Sea, refinery and terminal work; the Welding Workshop matches shipbuilding, nuclear and energy-transition fabrication; the Aircraft Hangar matches the aerospace corridor; and the NDT Lab supports fundamentals and rail and component work.

The simulator has five workplace environments, twelve methods and 33 guided lessons. The methods are grouped the way most UK technicians already think about them: surface methods (PT, MT, VT), volumetric methods (UT contact, PAUT, TOFD, RT), electromagnetic methods (ET, MFL) and three specialist techniques that appear constantly in UK plant work, namely LRUT guided-wave screening, IRIS internal rotary UT for heat-exchanger and boiler tubes, and PMI for alloy verification.

• Oil & Gas Site (73 jobs). Weld, corrosion, tube and screening practice in a process plant. Relevant for offshore topsides, onshore terminals, refineries on the Solent, Mersey, Humber and Milford Haven, and chemical parks on Teesside and in the North West.
• Storage Tank. UT shell thickness surveys and MFL floor screening on a full-size tank. Relevant to fuel terminals such as Grangemouth's post-refining operation, refinery tank farms and LNG and product storage at ports.
• Welding Workshop (52 jobs). Weld coupons and fabrication joints. Relevant to shipyards on the Clyde, at Barrow, Rosyth and Birkenhead, to nuclear new build at Hinkley Point C, to offshore wind foundation fabrication and to pipeline and pressure-vessel fabrication shops.
• Aircraft Hangar (54 jobs). Airframe and component inspection. Relevant to aero-engine, wing, helicopter and military aircraft work, and to MRO operations at airports.
• NDT Lab (52 jobs). Bench specimens and reference blocks. Relevant to trainees, to apprentices in college programmes, to calibration and set-up practice and to component inspection in rail and precision engineering.

Two methods deserve a specific mention for UK users. TOFD and PAUT are now standard for weld inspection on thick-walled pressure equipment and on offshore wind monopile and transition-piece welds, and they take time to learn because set-up choices (probe angle, focal law, probe centre separation, scan plan) drive everything that follows. The simulator lets a technician make those set-up choices repeatedly and see the consequences. Radiography is the other: real exposures carry radiation protection obligations and need controlled areas, so practising film and digital image interpretation in a simulator is a safe way to build the interpretation side of the skill without a source anywhere near the trainee.

PCN, EN ISO 9712 and the UK rules technicians work under

Short answer: most UK NDT personnel are certified to EN ISO 9712, usually through PCN, the scheme administered by BINDT (the British Institute of Non-Destructive Testing). Aerospace work follows EN 4179 and employer approval. Practical NDT is practice for any of these schemes and is not a certification under any of them.

Personnel certification. PCN is the dominant third-party scheme in the UK, and many UK technicians also hold CSWIP or other certificates for weld inspection. Aerospace NDT personnel are qualified under EN 4179, with the employer's written procedures and Level 3 oversight. Some employers, particularly those working for US-owned operators, US OEMs or EPC contractors on US-code projects, also qualify staff to ASNT SNT-TC-1A through an employer written practice. Atlantis's own training covers ASNT SNT-TC-1A only. Atlantis does not offer PCN, EN ISO 9712, CSWIP or EN 4179 training or examinations, and the simulator is useful whichever scheme a technician is working towards.

Radiation protection. Industrial radiography in Great Britain falls under the Ionising Radiations Regulations 2017, enforced by the Health and Safety Executive. IRR17 uses a graded approach of notification, registration and consent, and industrial radiography is among the practices that need HSE consent. Holding radioactive sources also needs a permit from the environment regulator (the Environment Agency in England, Natural Resources Wales or SEPA in Scotland). Northern Ireland has its own equivalent regulations enforced by HSENI. A radiography employer's radiation protection adviser and local rules govern real exposures; the simulator involves no radiation at all.

Pressure equipment and plant. In-service pressure systems in Great Britain are covered by the Pressure Systems Safety Regulations 2000, which require a written scheme of examination drawn up or certified by a competent person, and NDT is often part of those examinations. New pressure equipment placed on the market follows the Pressure Equipment (Safety) Regulations 2016, which mirror the EU PED. Offshore installations operate under the Offshore Installations (Safety Case) Regulations 2015, with HSE's energy division as the regulator, and nuclear sites are regulated by the Office for Nuclear Regulation. Aviation maintenance is overseen by the Civil Aviation Authority.

Codes and standards. UK technicians routinely work to BS EN ISO standards for weld testing and acceptance levels (for example the ISO 17640 and ISO 11666 family for UT, ISO 17636 for RT, ISO 23277 for PT and ISO 17638 for MT), to PD 5500 and EN 13445 for pressure vessels, and to ASME and API codes on US-owned assets. The simulator does not certify compliance with any of these documents, but it trains the habits each of them depends on: correct set-up, consistent scanning, honest recording and careful sizing.

For help writing or reviewing procedures and written practices for UK sites that work to US codes, see NDT Level III consulting in the UK. If you need to track PCN, CSWIP, EN 4179 and ASNT certificates in one place, the Atlantis ERP for UK inspection companies records all of them alongside each other.

For trainees, working technicians and Level IIIs in the UK

Short answer: trainees use guided lessons to build fundamentals before supervised site work, working technicians use rare-defect jobs to stay sharp between assignments, and Level IIIs and team leads build scenario sets to benchmark crews and find coverage gaps.

Trainees and apprentices. The UK has a mix of routes into NDT: engineering apprenticeships, college courses, armed forces leavers, and people moving across from welding, fabrication or mechanical trades. All of them face the same bottleneck. Formal course hours give theory and a few days of supervised practical work, but the hours of experience required before certification are gained slowly on real jobs, and a trainee often watches more than they scan. The 33 guided lessons start in the NDT Lab with calibration, reference blocks and simple flaws, then move to weld coupons and plant jobs. A trainee arriving on site has already made the common mistakes in a place where they cost nothing.

Working technicians. Many UK technicians hold several methods but use two or three regularly. An offshore technician might do UT thickness and corrosion mapping for months and then be asked to do MT on a structural repair, or a refinery contractor might run IRIS once a year at turnaround. The jobs in the Oil & Gas Site and Welding Workshop include rare and hard-to-source defects (lack of sidewall fusion, transverse cracking, pitting under insulation, tube wall loss at baffles) that a technician might otherwise see only a handful of times in a career.

Level IIIs and team leads. A Level 3 or Level III responsible for a team can assemble scenario sets that reflect the work coming up, assign them before mobilisation and compare results objectively. That makes it easier to decide who goes on a critical job, where refresher training is needed and whether a procedure is clear enough for technicians to follow consistently. For inspection companies that run mixed crews, some PCN-certified and some ASNT-qualified, a common set of practice jobs is a neutral way to compare people.

Practice vs certification

Short answer: Practical NDT is a practice and readiness tool. It does not grant PCN, EN ISO 9712, EN 4179, CSWIP or ASNT certification, and it does not replace any practical examination on real specimens.

Every certification scheme used in the UK requires a practical examination on real specimens under controlled conditions, plus documented training and industrial experience. Under PCN that examination is run at an authorised qualifying body; under ASNT SNT-TC-1A it is run by the employer according to its written practice; under EN 4179 it is controlled by the employer's responsible Level 3 or an external agency. Simulator hours are not counted as industrial experience by any of these schemes unless an employer's own procedures say otherwise, and Atlantis makes no claim that they are.

What the simulator does is make those real examinations and real jobs less of a shock. A candidate who has already set up a PAUT scan plan dozens of times, interpreted a range of radiographic images and sized indications against acceptance criteria goes into the real exam with more confidence. An employer who has watched a technician's simulator scores over a few weeks has an extra piece of evidence when deciding whether that technician is ready. For formal training, see Atlantis NDT training, which is ASNT SNT-TC-1A only.

Offshore hitches, turnarounds and outages: why UK crews practise virtually

Short answer: UK inspection work arrives in concentrated bursts, from offshore campaigns to refinery turnarounds to nuclear and power outages, and technicians often go weeks between uses of a given method. A browser-based simulator fits the gaps.

The UK's inspection calendar is shaped by campaigns. Offshore work follows rotations and weather windows. Refinery and chemical turnarounds on the Solent, the Mersey, the Humber and Teesside pull in large contractor crews for a few intense weeks. Power stations and nuclear sites run planned outages where every day offline is expensive. In between, many technicians are on shorter or less varied jobs, and skills in the methods they are not using start to drift.

Physical practice is hard to arrange in those gaps. Reference specimens with realistic flaws are expensive and scarce, inspection company training rooms are busy, and offshore personnel are by definition away from them. A technician on leave in Inverness, Hull or Swansea is not going to drive to a lab to scan a weld coupon for an hour. Opening a simulator job at home or in a hotel room is a different proposition.

There is also the workforce question. Like the rest of Europe, the UK NDT sector has many experienced technicians approaching retirement and a steady need for new entrants, while offshore wind, nuclear new build and energy transition projects are adding work. Getting new people to a useful standard faster, and giving experienced people a structured way to pass on what good looks like, matters to every UK inspection manager. Scenario sets designed around real job types are one practical way to do that.

Finally, practice in a simulator is safe. There is no radiation, no work at height, no confined space entry and no hot work permit. Trainees can make mistakes that would be dangerous or expensive on a real site and learn from the score and feedback instead.

Bring Practical NDT to your UK team

Short answer: request a demo, tell us which UK sectors and methods matter to your team, and we will walk through the relevant environments and set up a trial scenario set. Pricing is quote on request.

Atlantis built the first-ever online practical NDT simulation portal for practice and hands-on experience, and the scenario library was designed by Anoop Rayavarapu, ASNT NDT Level III and founder of Atlantis NDT. The product is affordable, accessible and fully customisable: inspection companies, operators, training providers and colleges in the UK can use it as it is or ask for scenario sets aligned to their own procedures and job mix.

A typical start looks like this. We hold a short call to understand your work, whether that is North Sea integrity, shipyard weld inspection, aerospace components or refinery turnarounds. We then show the matching environments live, agree a pilot group, and set up accounts so technicians can begin practising in a browser or app. Team leads get visibility of results so they can see progress and gaps. There is no hardware to install and no lab to book.

• Request a Practical NDT demo for your UK team
• Ask for a UK quote for a crew, a training cohort or a whole company
• Discuss a custom scenario set for North Sea, nuclear, aerospace or shipyard work

You can also read the Practical NDT overview for the full list of environments and methods.

Frequently asked questions

Is there an NDT simulator I can use in the UK?

Yes. The Atlantis Practical NDT simulator runs in a browser or app, so it can be used anywhere in England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, including offshore where connectivity allows. There is no UK centre to visit; access is online, and demos are arranged through the contact form.

Does Practical NDT count towards PCN certification?

No. PCN certification to EN ISO 9712 requires training, documented industrial experience and examinations at an authorised qualifying body. Simulator practice can help a candidate prepare, but it is not part of the PCN scheme and Atlantis does not offer PCN training or exams.

Can it help with NDT practical exam preparation?

Yes, as preparation. Repeated set-up, scanning, interpretation and sizing jobs build the confidence and habits a practical exam tests. The exam itself must still be taken on real specimens under the rules of the relevant scheme.

Is it useful for North Sea and offshore wind inspection?

Yes. The Oil & Gas Site environment covers corrosion mapping, weld inspection, tube inspection and LRUT screening, and the Welding Workshop covers PAUT and TOFD on thick welds of the kind found in monopiles, transition pieces and jackets.

Does it cover aerospace NDT for UK manufacturers and MROs?

Yes. The Aircraft Hangar environment has 54 jobs covering airframe and component inspection with ET, PT, UT and VT. It does not replace EN 4179 qualification or the employer's own practical examinations.

Does it include radiography?

Yes. RT is one of the twelve methods, focused on technique and image interpretation. No radiation is involved, so there are no IRR17 obligations for simulator practice; real exposures remain subject to HSE consent and the employer's local rules.

Can a UK inspection company use it to benchmark new hires?

Yes. Level IIIs and team leads can assign the same scenario set to every candidate or new starter and compare scores objectively, which helps decide who is ready for which job.

What experience level is it for?

All levels: new trainees and apprentices on guided lessons, working technicians refreshing rarely used methods and rare defects, and Level IIIs building and assigning scenario sets.

Does Atlantis offer ASNT training in the UK?

Yes, ASNT SNT-TC-1A training only, delivered online, live-virtual or onsite at the client's facility for employers who need SNT-TC-1A personnel, for example on US-owned assets or US-code projects. See Atlantis training.

Is it relevant for nuclear work at Sellafield, Hinkley Point C or Barrow?

It can support practice in the methods used there, especially volumetric weld inspection and surface methods. Nuclear and defence sites have their own qualified techniques and personnel requirements, which the simulator does not replace.

How do we start?

Request a demo. We will show the environments that fit your work and agree a pilot. Pricing is quote on request.

Explore more: Practical NDT overview, Practical NDT Aberdeen, Practical NDT Teesside, NDT training, UK consulting, UK ERP, contact.

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