Who May Work With Radiation in Qatar: The Requirements
September 19, 2026
9 min read
DITEC Experts, Radiation Protection Team, ALDuha Institute for Training and Environmental Consulting
Two gates, and most employers only know about one
Ask a facility in Qatar what it takes to put someone on radiation work and you will usually hear about the personal licence. That is real, and Article 17 of the Regulation lists the file it needs. But it is the second gate, not the first.
The first gate is in Article 25, under the heading General provisions, and it is addressed to the employer rather than to the authority. It opens: no person may be employed in the fields of work with ionising radiation, or to carry out any other work connected with it, until his scientific and technical qualifications have been verified and he has been medically examined to confirm his fitness. The verification is a condition of employing the person at all - not a form to be completed afterwards.
Note the width of the wording. It is not confined to the person who operates the source. Any other work connected with it reaches the maintenance technician, the store keeper who receives the shipment, the driver who moves it inside the site.
What exactly is verified
Article 25 names two things and refers the detail elsewhere: scientific and technical qualifications, and medical fitness, both in accordance with the conditions the Council lays down. The personal licence file in Article 17 shows what that looks like on paper.
The personal licence file, Article 17(1)
| Document | What it has to show |
|---|---|
| Curriculum vitae | Covering the academic progression, the career progression and the experience |
| Approved medical report | On the state of health and the medical history of the applicant - it is the fitness examination of Article 25 in documentary form |
| Report on qualification activities | The study, the courses and the workshops the applicant has passed in the field he wishes to be licensed for |
| Anything further the General Secretariat considers necessary | The list is a floor, not a ceiling. The Secretariat may require more to complete and verify the information |
Training is measured against the hazard, not against a fixed syllabus
The training duty in Article 25 is written proportionately: the licensee must provide the workers with training appropriate to the scale of the radiation risks that may arise, together with effective occupational radiation monitoring and medical monitoring.
Two consequences follow, and they cut in opposite directions. A clinic running a single dental unit cannot be asked for the programme an industrial radiography contractor needs. And an operator working with a high-activity sealed source cannot discharge the duty with a general awareness session, however well attended.
The sentence also attaches two continuing duties to the same obligation: effective occupational radiation monitoring, and medical monitoring. Training is the entry condition; those two are what keep the position lawful over time.
The clause almost nobody quotes: working hours
Article 25 closes with a limit that has nothing to do with dosimeters: working hours in fields that involve radiation exposure must not exceed normal working hours, and may not be increased except in a case of extreme necessity, provided that this does not lead to the occupational exposure limits being exceeded.
This is a scheduling rule, and it is the one most often broken without anyone noticing - by a shutdown that runs long, a deadline that pulls a crew into overtime, a second shift covered by the same licensed operator because he is the only one licensed. Overtime in a radiation area is not simply a matter for the employment contract. It requires a case of extreme necessity, and it is capped by the occupational exposure limits regardless.
Why you will not find the detailed conditions in the Regulation
Article 21 is three lines long, and it is the reason a search of the Regulation for a list of required qualifications comes back empty. Under the heading Conditions governing work licences in the fields of radiation work, it provides that the Chairman issues, on the recommendation of the Committee, the conditions governing the licensing of workers in the various fields of radiation work.
Three things follow from that sentence, and they matter more than its brevity suggests. The conditions differ by field - the various fields of radiation work is plural and deliberate, so what an industrial radiographer must hold is not what a nuclear medicine technologist must hold. They live in a decision of the Chairman, which can be issued and amended without amending the Regulation. And an employer who reads the Regulation and concludes that no specific conditions exist has misread it: the Regulation is telling you where to look, not telling you there is nothing to find.
The practical instruction is short. Before recruiting for a radiation role, ask the competent authority in writing for the conditions in force for that specific field, and keep the answer with the personnel file. It is also the cheapest document to have in hand when an inspector asks how the appointment was assessed.
Frequently asked questions
Is it RPO or RSO in Qatar?
The Regulation's own term is the radiation protection officer, and Article 29 requires the licensee to name a person responsible for radiation protection, with instructions for that role issued by decision of the Chairman. In English practice both Radiation Protection Officer (RPO) and Radiation Safety Officer (RSO) are used for the same function, and market vacancies and training listings use both. What matters for compliance is the named person and the duties, not which of the two acronyms appears on the appointment letter.
Does an engineer with a foreign qualification need anything extra?
Article 25 requires verification of the scientific and technical qualifications in accordance with the conditions the Council lays down, and Article 21 puts those conditions in a decision of the Chairman. Recognition of a foreign qualification is therefore decided against that decision and not against the Regulation itself, which is why the written enquiry described above is worth making before an offer is made rather than after.
We only handle sealed sources in a store. Does Article 25 apply to the storekeeper?
The wording covers the fields of work with ionising radiation, and any other work connected with it. Receiving, storing and handing out a sealed source is work connected with it. Whether the storekeeper needs the same qualification as an operator is a question for the conditions in force for that field; whether he is inside the article at all is not in doubt.
Is the medical examination required once, or repeated?
Article 25 makes the examination a condition before employment, and in the same breath requires medical monitoring as a continuing duty alongside occupational monitoring. A single pre-employment certificate satisfies the first and not the second. The intervals themselves follow the conditions and the monitoring provisions rather than a figure stated in Article 25.
How the Institute can help
Most of the difficulty here is not legal, it is evidential: an employer who did the right thing but cannot show how the qualification was assessed is in the same position at inspection as one who did not.
ALDuha Institute trains radiation workers and radiation protection officers, and advises employers on building the personnel file that Articles 17 and 25 assume: what to ask for at recruitment, how to structure training so it is proportionate to the hazard on your site, and how to record it so the assessment can be shown rather than asserted.
Scope of what the Institute does: training and consulting. Field radiation surveys are carried out through specialist partners working in the field. The Institute does not carry out laboratory analysis, instrument calibration or equipment testing.
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 this article does not replace the official text or advice from the competent authority. Last updated 19 September 2026.