How to Become a Barber in Ireland

Barbering is not a regulated occupation in the Republic of Ireland. There is no licence, no register and no qualification you are legally required to hold. The Government’s own Point of Single Contact, which exists to tell people what the rules are for service occupations, states it directly: no specific qualification is required and you do not need to apply for a licence to operate a hairdressing salon in this country.

That leaves a training landscape that is genuinely confusing, mostly because Ireland does not have a barbering qualification of its own in the way it has one for hairdressing. This guide explains what actually exists in 2026, what is coming, and what the difference is between the awards you will be offered.

There is no QQI award called “Barbering”

This is the fact that clears up most of the confusion. Search the QQI awards database and you will not find a major award in barbering. What exists is:

• Hairdressing, award code 5M3351, at NFQ Level 5. A major award worth 120 credits, with mandatory components in hairdressing theory and practice, hairdressing science and safety and health at work.
• Barbering Techniques, award code 5N3348, also at Level 5. This is a minor award worth 15 credits, in other words a single component rather than a full qualification.

So when an Irish further education college advertises a barbering course, what it is almost always delivering is the Hairdressing major award at Level 5, with the barbering component inside it, topped up with a separate barbering certificate from a British awarding body. Bray Institute of Further Education pairs 5M3351 with a City and Guilds Certificate in Barbering. Monaghan Institute pairs it with a City and Guilds Barbering Diploma at Level 2 over two years. Ó Fiaich Institute in Dundalk pairs it with an ITEC Level 2 Certificate in Barbering.

None of that is a problem. It is just worth knowing what you are being awarded, because two very different pieces of paper come out at the end and they sit on two different national frameworks.

A warning about level numbers

Irish NFQ levels and British RQF levels are not the same scale and do not convert. A British Level 2 barbering certificate is not an Irish Level 2 award. Some private providers publish equivalence claims for their British awards. Those are the provider’s own claims. If an equivalence matters to you, for an employer or for progression, ask for it in writing and check it with QQI or NARIC Ireland rather than taking a marketing page at face value.

The apprenticeship question

Here is the thing most guides to this subject get wrong. There is no barbering apprenticeship in Ireland yet.

SOLAS’s official list of apprenticeships, dated July 2026, shows a barbering apprenticeship at Level 6 over two years, to be run by the Hair and Beauty Industry Confederation with Limerick and Clare Education and Training Board. It is listed as in development, not live. No registration date has been published. The most recent public milestone was an approved occupational profile, and a consortium peer review reported in 2024.

What is live is the National Hairdressing Apprenticeship. It leads to an Advanced Certificate in Hairdressing at NFQ Level 6, runs for a minimum of three years, and is structured as 80 per cent on the job and 20 per cent off the job, which in practice means one day a week in college. It is coordinated by Limerick and Clare ETB and delivered with the other fifteen ETBs, at centres including Kerry College, Cork College of FET in Mallow, Sallynoggin College of Further Education, FET College Dhúlaigh and Portlaoise Institute.

To start it you need to be employed by a salon registered with the scheme first. Entry requires a QQI Level 4 major award or equivalent, or two years of full time salon experience. Certification and qualification costs are paid by the education and training provider, the off the job training is free, and your employer pays you throughout.

If barbering specifically is what you want, and you want the earn while you learn structure, your options today are the hairdressing apprenticeship, which is broader than barbering, or a college or private course. Keep an eye on apprenticeship.ie for the barbering programme opening.

Post Leaving Certificate courses

PLC courses at Education and Training Boards and Colleges of Further Education are the main publicly funded route. Barbering provision runs one year full time at most colleges and two years at some, and it leads to the Level 5 Hairdressing award plus the British barbering certificate described above.

Colleges offering it include Bray Institute of Further Education in Wicklow, Monaghan Institute, Ó Fiaich Institute of FET in Dundalk, Cavan Institute and City of Dublin FET College at Dhúlaigh. Galway Technical Institute runs the Barbering Techniques component on its own as fourteen evening classes for €360 including the exam registration, which is the cheapest verified route into a recognised barbering component in the country.

What a PLC actually costs, and an unresolved contradiction

We are going to be honest about this rather than pick a number, because the official sources disagree.

Citizens Information, on a page edited in April 2026, and Education and Training Boards Ireland both state that you must pay a participant contribution of €200 per year for a PLC course, with exemptions for medical card holders and their dependent children, students eligible for a grant, and people on Back to Education Allowance or VTOS. SOLAS’s own learner website, thisisfet.ie, states that the €200 participant contribution was dropped in September 2022.

We could not find a Department statement resolving it for the 2026 to 2027 year. What we can tell you is what colleges actually publish. Monaghan Institute lists a maximum of €200 a year, or €150 with a medical card or social welfare payment, covering materials, exam fees, toolkits and uniforms, with its City and Guilds fees paid by the college and the ETB. Cavan Institute lists €200 plus a €50 student services charge. Ó Fiaich Institute lists a €30 registration fee.

The practical advice: assume a few hundred euro rather than nothing, ask the individual college for its fee schedule in writing, and check whether you are exempt. Note that even where the €200 contribution is waived, colleges charge a separate course charge for books, uniforms and exam fees, and that charge is usually still payable.

PLC students can get the SUSI maintenance grant but not the fee grant element.

Private academies

Private barbering academies are the fast route and they are where most career changers end up, partly because PLC places are limited and start in September. These are the published prices at the time of writing.

Provider	Course	Duration	Price
The Barber Academy, Dublin	Introduction to Barbering	Not published	€1,600
Sam’s Barbers Academy, Blanchardstown	12 Week Barbering Course	12 weeks, two evenings a week	€2,100 including kit
The Barber Academy, Dublin	Proficiency for Qualified Hairdressers	12 weeks, evenings	€2,300
Dundalk School of Barbering	Introduction to Barbering	6 weeks	€2,495 morning, €2,695 evening
The Barber Academy, Dublin	Diploma in Barbering	16 weeks, two days a week	€3,300

Short specialist courses sit below that, at around €350 for a one day advanced class and €750 for a three day modern and traditional barbering course.

A realistic range for a beginner to diploma course in the Republic is €1,600 to €3,300 for something between six and sixteen weeks. Ask what award you get. Some of these lead to a VTCT or City and Guilds certificate, and some lead to an in house diploma with no external recognition at all. Both can be perfectly good training. They are not the same thing on a CV.

Northern Ireland is different in two ways that matter

If you are in the border counties, it is worth knowing what changes when you cross.

First, premises registration. The Hairdressers Act (Northern Ireland) 1939 requires premises used for the trade or business of barber or hairdresser to be registered with the district council. Belfast City Council registers hairdressing and barber businesses free of charge. There is no equivalent in the Republic. It registers the shop, not the person, and it still imposes no qualification requirement.

Second, apprenticeships. Northern Ireland has a live, dedicated barbering apprenticeship where the Republic does not. Southern Regional College runs a Barbering Level 3 NVQ Diploma Apprenticeship over a year under ApprenticeshipsNI, with entry requiring a Level 2 Diploma in Barbering and employment of at least 21 hours a week with a Northern Ireland employer. It also runs a Level 2 Barbering Diploma traineeship.

Remember that the frameworks do not line up numerically. Northern Ireland uses RQF Levels 2 and 3; the Republic uses NFQ Levels 5 and 6.

What to ask before you pay

Ask exactly which award you receive and who awards it. Ask whether it is a QQI award, a British awarding body award, or an in house certificate. Ask how many hours you will spend on real clients. Ask whether the kit is included, since the difference between €2,100 with kit and €2,495 without is smaller than it looks. If you are going the PLC route, ask the college for its written fee schedule and whether you are exempt from the participant contribution.

Find a course

Every provider listed on this site has been checked against QQI, an awarding body or a national register before it went live. Browse the verified barbering courses in Ireland, or sort every course on the site by distance from you on the courses near me page.

Fees, award codes and apprenticeship status change. Everything here was checked in August 2026 against QQI, SOLAS, apprenticeship.ie, Citizens Information and the providers’ own published prices, and where sources conflicted we have said so rather than picked one. Confirm anything that affects your money with the provider directly.