IPAF and powered access

This article sets out what IPAF training is, what the PAL Card scheme certifies, and where powered access fits in circus rigging.

If you have looked into working at height, IPAF comes up often in the requirements on operating a scissor lift or a cherry picker. It is the training scheme for operating those machines, and the card it issues is widely recognised. IPAF teaches you to operate a powered platform to get safely to height. Powered access is one method among several of reaching the work, the same way rope access is, so it covers a specific and useful part of a rigger's skillset.

What IPAF actually is

IPAF stands for the International Powered Access Federation. It does not make the machines and it does not train you itself. It is a not-for-profit members' body, formed in 1983, that owns and certifies the training scheme, and IPAF Approved Training Centres around the world do the actual teaching and testing. There are over 800 of those centres. The training is certified as meeting an international standard, ISO 18878, for operator training on powered platforms.

That structure is worth understanding, because it is the same shape as IRATA on the rope-access side: the body sets and certifies the scheme, separate centres deliver it. It is what gives the card its weight.

Like IRATA, IPAF backs its position with published safety data rather than a slogan. It runs a global accident-reporting portal and puts out an annual Global Safety Report. The 2025 report, covering 2024 data, recorded 100 fatalities across the industry, down 26 per cent from 135 the year before, from 170 incident reports across 26 countries. The top causes of the serious accidents were overturns, then entrapment, then falls from the platform. Those last two matter to anyone working on a stage: an overturn or an operator trapped against the structure is exactly the risk a tight, cluttered, mixed-level space creates.

What the PAL Card certifies, and how the categories work

The card IPAF issues is the PAL Card, which stands for Powered Access Licence. It certifies that you have done an operator course and passed both a theory and a practical test at an Approved Training Centre, for the specific category or categories of machine shown on the card. That last point is the one to understand: a PAL Card is category-specific. It proves you were trained and tested on the machines listed on it, not on every powered platform.

The card lasts five years. Before it expires you re-train and re-test; it does not roll over on its own. IPAF now issues the card digitally through an app called ePAL, though some training centres still describe a physical card, so expect either depending on where you train.

The categories tell you what kind of machine you can operate. IPAF uses a short two-part code: a number for the chassis and a letter for the platform. In plain terms:

• 3a, mobile vertical. Scissor lifts. The platform goes straight up and down, and you can drive the machine from the platform while you are raised. This is the everyday indoor machine for fit-out and ceiling work.
• 3b, mobile boom. Boom lifts and cherry pickers. The arm reaches up and out and over obstacles, and again you drive from the platform. This is what you use when you have to reach over or around something.
• 1a, static vertical, and 1b, static boom. "Static" means the machine sits on stabilisers and cannot be driven while the platform is up. 1a goes straight up; 1b is a boom that reaches up and out. Vehicle-mounted and trailer-mounted platforms tend to sit here.
• PAV, push-around vertical. A lightweight, compact, single-person platform on a chassis you push into position by hand, then raise on power. Low-level and small. This is the machine most likely to fit on a stage.

A card on one category does not licence you for another. Training on scissors (3a) does not licence you on booms (3b), because a boom that reaches out and over introduces overturning and entrapment risks a straight-up scissor does not. Most operators carry the categories they actually use, and 3a plus 3b is the common pairing.

In the UK that pairing is usually trained as one course. Scissor lifts (3a) and booms or cherry pickers (3b) are normally taught together on a single combined 3a-and-3b operator course, and that is the standard route for someone starting out, rather than a special-order combination. It is most commonly a one-day course, though the length can run from about half a day up to two days, depending on the operator's experience, how many machine categories they take, and whether the theory is done online or in the classroom. A single category on its own is not materially shorter for a beginner; one full day is the usual shape either way.

There is also a strand for mast-climbing platforms (the MR and MO codes) and an advanced operator level called PAL+ for harder, more confined work, but the four mobile categories and PAV are what you will meet first.

A note on "IWP"

You will see the term "IWP" used for those lightweight push-around platforms. "IWP" is a Genie product name, the name of one manufacturer's range, rather than an IPAF category. IPAF's own term for that type of machine is PAV, push-around vertical. So if you read "IWP" somewhere and "PAV" somewhere else, they are pointing at the same kind of machine: the small, hand-positioned, single-person platform. The PAV course is a short one, a half-day at most centres, for a five-year licence.

The skills you walk away with

Put the operator training together and what you gain is the ability to take a powered platform, check it before use, set it up safely on the ground with its stabilisers or outriggers, operate it within its limits, work to the hazards that matter (overturn, entrapment and falls, the three the safety report names as responsible for fatalities), and shut it down safely. It is an operator skill for the machines on your card.

The short version is that IPAF makes you safe and competent operating a powered platform to reach height.

Where powered access fits a rigger's work

Powered access is one of the ways you reach a truss, a grid or a flown point to install, inspect, adjust or de-rig, and a guarded platform is one of the safer ways to do that. Under the work-at-height rules a guarded platform sits high in the order of preference, above a harness on a ladder, so knowing how to operate one safely is a real and useful thing to carry. Where the work involves reaching height in a venue a machine can fit into, the operator skill applies directly.

Its limit is the same one the rope-access article describes. IPAF certifies you to operate a machine to reach height safely. Powered access gets you to the work; it does not rig the act.

Powered access also has two catches specific to theatres and stages. The first is fit: MEWPs are often too big for older or smaller theatres, which is exactly why the lightweight push-around platforms (the IWP or PAV machines) exist. The second is floor-loading, and this is the one to take seriously. A heavy machine plus a heavy set on a lightweight or extended stage can exceed what the floor can carry. That limit is read off the venue's own rated floor or stage capacity, not off IPAF and not off any training course. Check the venue's structural and floor-loading figure before you bring any powered access onto a stage. Watch the stage hazards too: dip-traps, cable ducts, and changes in floor material such as perspex panels, any of which can catch a wheel or fail under a point load.

What it costs, and one thing worth knowing

A UK operator course currently runs roughly £150 to £300 plus VAT, depending on the category, the centre and the region. A single category such as 3a or 3b sits at the lower end, a dual 3a-and-3b course at the upper end. Those are prices set by the training centres, not by IPAF; IPAF certifies the scheme and the centres set their own fees.

IPAF certification for me has been essential when working on a festival site or in a council venue as they always require the PAL licence. Many theatre venues have either MEWPs or PAVs and may not check your PAL but if something goes wrong on a job you want to be able to prove your competence and having the right training and credentials will help to do that.

Sources: IPAF's published material — its primary pages, the IPAF Global Safety Report 2025, and current UK IPAF Approved Training Centre information, accessed June 2026.