01/04/2026
As you know I am strongly against piercing courses! Personally learnt the hard way with this having a very traumatic experience myself trying to get into the industry.
YOU NEED A MENTOR. A THOROUGH APPRENTICESHIP! You cannot learn to pierce safely from a course. You cannot learn all you need to learn in three days.
Piercing Courses & Schools Are Dangerous!
This won’t be popular, but I need say it, Piercing courses are doing far more harm than good.
They promise a fast track into the industry. “Learn to pierce in a few days.” “Get certified.” “Start earning immediately.” It sounds appealing and I get it, especially to people looking for a creative career or those that think this industry is a way to make a fast buck!
But here’s the reality:
You can’t learn to pierce safely in a weekend the same as you can’t learn to drive an HGV in 2 days, IT’S NOT SAFE!
The Dangerous Confidence Problem
The biggest issue isn’t just lack of knowledge, it’s false confidence. These courses give just enough information for someone to perform a piercing, but not enough to understand when something is going wrong. That’s where the danger lies, in people thinking that they are competent when in fact they have barely scratched the surface of a very complex industry. The learning never really stops but you must have a base knowledge of some very important topics such as infection control, sterilisation and anatomy to name a few.
A person will walk away thinking: “I’ve been trained. I know what I’m doing.”
But they haven’t dealt with:
• Complex anatomy variations
• Difficult placements
• Early signs of infection
• Jewellery incompatibility
• Healing complications
And when those situations show up, they’re guessing at best as they lack the mentorship of someone to walk them through these and many more issues that arise.
As clients they don’t know they’re the ones taking the risk and that’s the worst thing about it. The general public are trusting when it come to getting a piercing as with many other things you’d presume that if someone has a licence and a studio or shop that they know what they are doing and it’s not always the case unfortunately.
Certificates Don’t Equal Competence.
In the UK, there is no universal standard for piercing education but governing bodies like the APP and the UKAPP have a lot of resources for those looking into choosing piercing as a career. This means anyone can run a course, print a certificate, and call it “training.”
Let’s be clear:
A certificate from a short course does not make someone a professional piercer, It means they attended something.
THAT IS IT!
The Business Behind Courses
Here comes the uncomfortable bit courses are designed to make money, not to create safe piercers.
Think about it:
• Short courses = more students
• More students = more profit
• Less time teaching = lower costs
There’s no incentive to slow down and properly train people over months or years. That wouldn’t scale or make a profit. Most piercing courses cost anywhere from £500+ So let’s do the math's, £500 x 10 pupils = £5000. Then lets say that the course is 3 days and they run one every week/weekend with then running an average of 40 a year. £5000 x 40 = £200,000 a year. Now there are cost incurred yes but these courses don’t use industry standard jewellery or supplies meaning they opt for cheaper alternatives meaning they can maximise profits as well, the cost of running the courses for the year wont make much of a dent in that 200K turnover.
So in turn the industry is flooded with undertrained beginners using questionable jewellery, who believe they’re ready.
Who Pays the Price?
Not those providing the course, the clients do.
They have to deal with:
• Poor placement of jewellery meaning healing is more complicated.
• Incorrect jewellery, especially for different anatomy types like navels.
• Infections and irritation and people that don’t know how to deal with or treat the route course.
• Long-term scarring from rejection due to some of the reasons above.
And often, they don’t even realise it was avoidable.
The Impact on Professional Piercers
For those who’ve invested years into learning properly and continue to do so, this is so very frustrating.
Professional piercing is built on:
• Ongoing education
• Strict hygiene standards
• High-quality materials
• Experience across hundreds of hours and thousands of piercings
Courses undermine all of that by suggesting it can be condensed into a few days. IT CAN’T!
So What’s the Alternative?
Real training takes time. It involves:
• Mentorship under an experienced professional
• Gradual, supervised hands-on experience
• Deep understanding of safety and healing
• Continuous learning from organisations like the Association of Professional Piercers and UKAPP by attending industry conferences and events.
It’s slower. It’s harder. And it doesn’t come with instant gratification.
But it protects clients.
Finally If a course promises to make you a piercer quickly, ask yourself:
If you compare it to learning to drive. You do a theory test hours of practising then a practical test and upon completion you can drive to a dgree yes. Now having passed your test would you then go and jump in an HGV, no as you need much more training to progress and learn new skills. It would be dangerous and you would more than likely course an accident at least and at worst potentially kill someone.
So then why does this profession one that involves breaking skin, managing risk, and preventing infection get treated like something you can learn in a weekend?
Because it shouldn’t be.
And until more people start questioning it, nothing will change.
