Signaller non-technical skills: the 8 skills explained

By Signaller Tests · Updated 6 October 2026 · 9 min read

Network Rail's signaller careers page listed eight non-technical skills until the site was rebuilt in August 2026 (archived copy): conscientious, attention management, workload management, working with others, controlled under pressure, decision making, communications, and willingness and ability to learn. Applicants report that the competency interview at the assessment stage is built largely on them. Some applicant accounts and older versions of the framework use different names for a few of them, such as "relationships with people", "planning and decision making" and "multi-tasking capacity". The current site no longer prints the list. It now says successful signallers are “safety-focused, calm under pressure, strong communicators, able to concentrate for long periods, comfortable following rules and procedures, and confident making decisions”, which covers the same ground, and that the video interview “measures the behaviours required to be a Signaller”. Our behaviour practice section uses the names from Network Rail's eight, and the notes below give the older names too. "Non-technical skills" is a standard rail industry idea — the social, thinking and personal skills that sit alongside technical know-how — and RSSB, the industry's safety body, publishes general material on it. They are also the natural frame for the recorded video interview's competency questions and for the behaviour questionnaire, although Network Rail does not publish how either of those is scored.

Preparing one example for each is the highest-value hour you can spend on this application. Most candidates arrive with two good stories and try to bend them to fit whatever is asked. Eight prepared examples means you are choosing the best fit rather than the only one you have.

The eight

1. Conscientious

Thoroughness, checking, following the method even when you can see a shortcut. In signalling this is close to the definition of the role: a great many operational errors come not from people who did not know, but from people who were fairly sure.

A strong example involves you doing the careful thing when nobody would have known if you had not — checking something you were already confident about, and either finding something or not finding anything but doing it anyway.

2. Working with others

Older name: relationships with people.

Co-operation and regard for others, including people you deal with only by phone and radio and may never meet. Signalling involves constant contact with drivers, track staff and control, frequently when everybody is under pressure.

A strong example is usually about someone difficult rather than someone easy — keeping a working relationship functional with a person you did not get on with, because the work required it.

3. Communications

Two halves, and candidates almost always prepare only one. The first is clarity — saying the thing precisely, confirming it was received. The second is challenge: saying the uncomfortable thing, across a grade difference, when you think somebody has got it wrong.

A strong example for the second half beats a strong example for the first, because the second is rarer and matters more in a safety role.

4. Willingness and ability to learn

How you take instruction and correction. Relevant to a role that starts with an intensive, assessed training course (see signaller training).

A strong example includes a time you were told you had got something wrong and what you did next — not a time you learned a new system easily. Willingness to look inexperienced by asking is the specific behaviour that keeps trainees safe.

5. Decision making

Older name: planning and decision making.

Prioritising, thinking ahead, and deciding when you do not have everything you would like. Note that the role needs both halves: planning ahead and the ability to decide fast when the plan has just been destroyed by a failure.

A strong example shows the reasoning, not just the outcome. Why that order, what you consciously left undone, and what you would have done if the first choice had not worked.

6. Workload management

Older name: multi-tasking capacity.

Handling several concurrent demands and switching between them without losing your place. This is the skill the multi-tasking exercise measures behaviourally, so the interview is asking you to describe the same thing in words.

A strong example is specific about what you deliberately let slip. Everybody claims to juggle well; the credible answer names the trade-off.

7. Controlled under pressure

Staying functional when it goes wrong, and recovering afterwards.

A strong example is not "I stayed completely calm". It is what you actually did — the concrete actions — while it was happening. Panels have heard a great many claims of calmness and comparatively few descriptions of behaviour.

8. Attention management

Sustaining focus, resisting distraction, and — the part people miss — staying alert through low workload. A signaller's hardest hour is often the one where nothing happens, and vigilance in that state is a recognised hazard rather than an easy default.

A strong example can come from anywhere involving monitoring, long shifts, or a job where the important event was rare.

How to build the examples

Use STAR — situation, task, action, result — but weight it properly. Most people spend three quarters of the answer setting the scene. Set it in two sentences and spend the time on what you did and why you chose that, because the reasoning is the thing being assessed.

Pick examples that can be pointed at more than one skill. A single well-chosen incident can serve for communications, controlled under pressure and decision making depending on which part you emphasise. Four flexible examples covering eight headings is more useful than eight rigid ones.

Use real events — there are worked examples in signaller interview questions. Recorded video interviews and competency panels both probe, and an invented example collapses on the second question — the one about what you would do differently.

Where the questionnaire fits

The behaviour questionnaire asks about the same kinds of working behaviour, which is the practical reason not to construct a profile on it. If the questionnaire says you strongly prefer to work to a fixed plan and your interview example is about improvising well when everything changed, the mismatch is visible. Answer the questionnaire as yourself and the two stages agree by default.

Sources

Network Rail publishes its signaller recruitment stages but not the exercises in its online assessment. Where this guide describes the format, it relies on what applicants report and says so; facts below are from the sources listed.

Signallers (archived 10 July 2026, before Network Rail rebuilt the site) — Network Rail, via the Internet Archive, checked 6 October 2026. The previous signaller page listed eight non-technical skills (conscientious, attention management, workload management, working with others, controlled under pressure, decision making, communications, willingness and ability to learn), pay by grade from Grade 2 (£36,196) to Grade 9 (£59,391), and a five-stage process (application form, online assessment, video interview, assessment, offer). The current site no longer publishes the skills list or the pay table.
Be a Signaller — Network Rail (operations careers), checked 6 October 2026. Network Rail's current signaller page: what the job involves (including “communicating with train drivers, controllers and maintenance teams”), 18 or over with no upper age limit, living within a travel time of typically 50 to 60 minutes of the location with no applications based on relocation, 13 weeks of Initial Signaller Training (11 of them residential, Monday to Friday) then training at your location, up to 18 months to full competence for some higher-graded roles, Grades 2 to 9 with every trainee starting on Grade 2 pay and the salary structure set out in each job advert (a Grade 2 trainee post was advertised from £36,196), and a speech assessment at the medical.
FAQs — Network Rail (operations careers), checked 6 October 2026. Practice questions are offered before each online test; the online tests are remotely invigilated so Network Rail can verify who is sitting them; AI must not be used for any online testing component; you can apply for one role but your assessment results may be considered for other suitable vacancies for up to six months; a positive drug or alcohol test brings a 5-year suspension from safety critical roles; “Successful Signallers are safety-focused, calm under pressure, strong communicators, able to concentrate for long periods, comfortable following rules and procedures, and confident making decisions.”
Non-technical skills — RSSB, checked 15 September 2026. The rail industry's safety body on non-technical skills in general. Network Rail's own list of the signaller non-technical skills is on its operations careers site.

Frequently asked questions

What are the non-technical skills signallers are assessed on?

Network Rail's signaller careers page listed eight until its 2026 rebuild: conscientious, attention management, workload management, working with others, controlled under pressure, decision making, communications, and willingness and ability to learn. Applicants report the assessment centre interview is built on them, and they are a sensible frame for the video interview and questionnaire too.

How many interview examples should I prepare?

Four to six real situations, each of which can be pointed at more than one of the eight skills depending on which part you emphasise. That is more useful than eight rigid one-to-one examples, and much more useful than the two stories most candidates arrive with.

Should I use the STAR method?

Yes, but weight it correctly. Most candidates spend three quarters of the answer on the situation. Set the scene in two sentences and spend the time on what you did and why you chose it, because the reasoning is what is being assessed.

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