Assistant Industrial Radiographer Licence Conditions in Qatar
October 5, 2026
10 min read
DITEC Experts, Radiation Protection Team, ALDuha Institute for Training and Environmental Consulting
The entry-level licence in a high consequence practice
One point before anything else. Meeting the conditions in the Decision is what you can prepare for. Whether a licence is granted, and when, is a decision of the competent authority alone, and nothing in this explanation and nothing in any course is a commitment that a licence will be issued or that it will be issued within a given period. What this article does is set out the condition as the instrument states it and point to the training that bears on it.
The assistant is the third rung of the radiography ladder in the schedule of Decision 4 of 2007, and in one respect it is the most consequential entry in the whole group. It is the point at which a person with no prior experience and a general secondary certificate can hold a licence that puts him beside a source container on a night shift. The Decision is explicit about that: item 3 has four conditions in each of its two tracks and an experience condition in neither of them.
That is not an oversight and it is not a licence to be careless. Read it against the two entries above it and the structure becomes clear: the supervisor carries five years and a degree, the radiographer carries a year and a diploma, and the assistant carries neither because the assistant is never meant to be the person who decides. The protection the framework relies on for the assistant is not his experience. It is the radiation protection course, which the Decision does not reduce by a single word; the presence of somebody above him who is licensed to decide; and the protection obligations the Law and the Regulation place on the licensee. The prescribed medical examination is a fitness condition for the licence. It is not a protective barrier and does not stand in for the course.
The four conditions, and what each of them is for
Both tracks of item 3 open with the same formula as items 1 and 2 and then set out four conditions. The academic condition is that he hold the general secondary certificate or its equivalent, at minimum, which is the same floor in both tracks, with no field of study named. The radiography condition is that he pass a training course in industrial radiography at Level I from an approved centre. The radiation protection condition is that he pass a training course in radiation protection in industrial applications from an approved centre. And the fourth is that he pass the prescribed medical examination.
Notice that the radiation protection condition on the assistant is written in exactly the same words as the radiation protection condition on the radiographer in the later track of item 2. The schedule reduces the academic floor, drops the radiography level from II to I, and removes the experience condition altogether, and it does not reduce the radiation protection condition by a single word. That is the clearest statement in the whole group about where the framework places the protection of an entry-level worker.
The practical consequence is worth stating plainly, because it is the one thing employers get wrong on this entry. There is no condition in item 3 that a qualified person can satisfy on the assistant's behalf, and there is no condition in item 3 that gets easier because the assistant is supervised. Supervision is what the role is; it is not a substitute for the course or the examination.
The single difference between the two tracks
Item 3 is split into practices before the Law and practices after it like item 2, but unlike item 2 the two tracks are almost identical. The academic condition is the same, the radiation protection condition is the same, the medical condition is the same, and neither track has an experience condition. The whole of the difference is inside the radiography condition.
On the earlier track the condition reads that he pass a training course in industrial radiography at Level I from an approved centre, or that he pass the examination the Council decides in respect of those who were trained locally. On the later track the same condition appears without the alternative. So the earlier track offers a person trained locally a second route to the same condition, and the later track offers the course and nothing else.
As with item 2, the Decision does not describe that examination: it says the authority decides it, and that is all. We do not tell clients it is available and we do not tell them it is not. Ask the Ministry whether an examination is set, who is eligible to sit it, and what it covers, and keep the written answer. Any summary of this Decision that describes the content of that examination has gone beyond the instrument.
The assistant against the radiographer
The two entries are the two licences that are present on almost every radiography crew, and the table sets them against each other on the later track. It is a reading of items 2 and 3 of the industrial applications and nothing is added to it.
Items 2 and 3 on the later track
| Condition | Assistant, item 3 paragraph B | Radiographer, item 2 paragraph B |
|---|---|---|
| Academic floor | General secondary certificate or its equivalent, no field named | Diploma in a branch of engineering or sciences, two years after secondary |
| Radiography level | Level I training course | Level II training course |
| Experience | No experience condition in the item | Not less than one year, practical, in the field |
| Radiation protection course | Required, in the same words as for the radiographer | Required |
| Prescribed medical examination | Required | Required |
What an employer should do with this entry
Because item 3 is the entry point, it is where an employer's own practice matters most and where the Decision says least. The points below are the Institute's working practice and the Decision requires none of them.
An employer checklist for the assistant entry
Do not read the absence of an experience condition as a lower standard of care
- The Decision sets conditions for a licence. It does not set the standard of supervision an employer owes a new worker, and nothing in item 3 displaces the licensee obligations in the Law and the Regulation.
- In our reviews, the assistant is the role most often placed on a roster before the radiation protection course has been passed, on the reasoning that he is only assisting.
Keep the Level I course and the radiation protection course as two records
- They are two of the four conditions, with different subjects, and each has to come from a centre the authority recognises for it. A single combined certificate answers one condition and leaves the other unevidenced.
Decide the progression route before the assistant asks about it
- An assistant who wants to become a radiographer on the later track needs a diploma in a branch of engineering or sciences and a year of practical experience in the field. Neither is produced by time on a crew alone, and the records that evidence the year have to exist while the year is being worked.
Settle what the medical examination is once; have each person examined
- The condition is identical in all three radiography entries: that he pass the prescribed medical examination. Ask the Ministry once which examination is prescribed and at what interval, and that answer is the same for the whole crew. The examination itself is a condition on an individual, so one person's examination does not stand in for another's, and each licence holder keeps his own record.
Questions we are asked about this item
Is it correct that an assistant needs no experience at all?
The item as it stands lists four conditions in each track and none of them is an experience condition, and that is what distinguishes it from the two entries above it. What follows from that is narrow: no period of prior service has to be evidenced for this licence. It does not follow that a new assistant may be used as a radiographer, and it does not follow that the employer's own duties are reduced.
Can an assistant work alone on a site?
Item 3 is a licence to work as an assistant industrial radiographer, and the function the title names is assisting. The conditions of your own licence, the licensee obligations of the facility, and any condition the authority attaches when it grants the licence are what govern how the crew is composed on a specific job, and those are read together rather than from this item alone.
Which track applies to a new assistant we are hiring now?
The headings describe practices, not applicants: one covers practices before the issue of the Law and the other practices after it. So the answer follows the practice being licensed and not the hire date, and for item 3 the consequence is small in any case, because the only difference between the two tracks is the local examination alternative inside the radiography condition.
Does the assistant also need the radiation protection course?
Yes, and in the same words as the radiographer. The Decision lowers the academic floor and the radiography level for the assistant and removes the experience condition, and it leaves the radiation protection condition exactly as it stands in the entry above. A crew member who has not passed it has not met one of the four conditions of his own licence.
Is a Level I course from any training provider acceptable?
The condition names the level and the source of the course together: a Level I training course in industrial radiography from a centre the authority recognises. Recognition is given for a named course at a named centre and is not a general status, so the question to ask is about the specific course and the specific centre. Ask before the course is paid for rather than after the certificate is in the file.
How the Institute can help
Two findings recur on assistant files. The first is a crew roster that puts a new assistant on shift before the radiation protection course has been passed, on the reasoning that the item has no experience condition, which confuses the one condition the Decision removed with the one it kept word for word. The second is a combined certificate offered against both the Level I condition and the radiation protection condition, so a file with four conditions evidences three.
The Institute delivers radiation protection training for industrial applications, reviews a crew's licence files against item 3 condition by condition, advises on the records that let an assistant later evidence the year of practical experience the radiographer entry requires, and drafts the enquiry to the Ministry on the prescribed medical examination and on recognition of a named course. Level I, II and III industrial radiography certification is a separate qualification obtained from a centre that provides it, and the Institute does not issue it.
Scope of what the Institute does: training and consulting. Field radiation surveys are carried out through specialist partners. The Institute does not carry out laboratory analysis, instrument calibration or equipment testing.
A technical note. The conditions in this Decision are licensing conditions, not site work instructions. Meeting them, and the licence that may follow, replaces nothing in operational protection: every exposure has a controlled-area boundary that is monitored with a working survey meter, and the exposure is not finished, and the site is not approached, until a measurement confirms that the source has returned to its shield. The return of the source is not inferred from a mechanical indicator, from resistance felt on the crank, or from counting turns. These are obligations on the licensee under the Law, the Regulation and the conditions of his own licence, and their place is not this Decision.
A note on one word. The Decision repeatedly requires a course to be taken from a centre it describes with an Arabic word that this explanation renders as approved. The Decision does not name who gives that approval and does not say whether it is a general status or given for a particular course. In the Decision this description qualifies the training centre and no other body. The English word is a rendering chosen for this explanation and is not a term of art: our practical reading is to ask in the Arabic wording of the Decision, naming the specific course and the specific centre, and to keep the answer in writing, because what the instrument leaves open the authority settles. The Institute is a licensed training provider and describes itself that way and no other way.
A note on the authority named in the text. The word the Decision uses for the authority is the Council. It is the word of a 2007 instrument whose preamble refers to the Executive Regulation issued by decision of the President of the Supreme Council for the Environment and Natural Reserves, number 4 of 2003. The body that word names no longer exists. Competence today sits with the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change, and the unit concerned is named in the organisational decisions as the Radiation Protection Department. The word Council is kept only where this explanation renders what the instrument itself says, because that is the instrument's own word; in the Institute's own advice it is written as the Ministry. Read Council as the Ministry throughout.
This explanation is published for awareness by the radiation protection team at ALDuha Institute for Training and Environmental Consulting. The English text is an explanation, not a certified translation: the Arabic text published in the Official Gazette governs in case of any difference, and the official Arabic wording of every condition discussed here is quoted in full on the Arabic version of this article. This explanation is introductory. It is not a legal opinion, it does not replace the conditions of your own licence, and it does not replace review by the regulator. Last updated 5 October 2026.