Who can carry out an EICR? Qualifications that count

An EICR must be carried out by a "qualified and competent person": in practice, an electrician holding a current edition BS 7671 qualification plus a periodic inspection and testing qualification (City & Guilds 2391 or equivalent), with the instruments and insurance to stand behind a signed legal document. Scheme membership (NICEIC, NAPIT and the like) is how most people evidence that, but for inspection work it is the competence the law names, not the badge.

What the law actually says

England's landlord regulations require inspections by a "qualified and competent person" and point to industry guidance rather than a licence register. The trade's working consensus on what that means: a recognised periodic inspection and testing qualification, current-edition BS 7671 knowledge (the 18th edition and its amendments), adequate experience of the installation type, calibrated instruments, and insurance appropriate to signing condition reports. Scotland's guidance points at scheme membership or equivalent demonstrable competence; the shape is the same everywhere: competence you can evidence, not self-declared confidence.

Does the inspector have to be scheme-registered?

For the inspection itself, not strictly. Competent person schemes exist primarily to let members self-certify notifiable installation work under the Building Regulations, which an EICR is not (it's an inspection, not work). In the real market, though, scheme registration is how landlords, agents and councils filter inspectors, many insurers expect it, and a scheme's complaints process is worth something to the client. An unregistered inspector with a 2391 and a folder of insurance certificates can be entirely legitimate; they just have more explaining to do.

Can the electrician who wired it inspect it?

Nothing prohibits it, and for small firms it's routine. The counterargument matters on bigger or contested jobs: an inspection is partly a check on the original work, and independence has value, which is why some clients deliberately bring in a different firm for periodic inspection than for installation.

Can a landlord or homeowner do their own?

Legally, for an owner-occupier, nobody will arrest you for filling in a form, but the document would be worthless, and dangerously so. The report's entire value is that a competent person signs it; a DIY "EICR" evidences nothing to a council, a court, an insurer or a buyer, and live testing without training is how people get hurt. For English landlords the regulations' "qualified and competent" wording closes the door properly. This is one of the few trades questions with a genuinely one-word answer: no.

What a client should ask before booking

Which qualification covers your periodic inspection work? Are you current-edition? May I see your public liability and PI insurance? Are your instruments in calibration? Any inspector worth booking answers all four without bristling. The report itself is the final check: full schedules, coded observations with regulation references, and a signature with the inspector's own name and credentials on it.

For the trade

Those credentials belong on every report, correctly, every time. In Pascal each engineer signs with their own name and qualifications, never the boss's by default, because "who inspected this, and were they competent?" is the first question the document exists to answer, five years before anyone asks it.