Dental Technician

Dental technicians sometimes called dental technologists make the dentures, crowns, bridges and dental braces that improve patients’ appearance, speech and ability to chew.

Dental technicians use a wide range of materials such as gold, porcelain and plastic to design and construct appliances to meet each patient’s needs.

As a dental technician much of your work will be done by hand to fine-tune each piece to exact specifications, but you will also work with specialised equipment in the laboratory. Since each patient is unique, no two pieces are the same and absolute precision is essential to make sure the device is comfortable and effective for the patient.

Dental technicians may also work directly with patients in a clinic alongside a dentist or clinical dental technician.

Woman patient at dentist
Female dentist examining a patient with tools in dental clinic by Jacob Lund from Noun Project https://thenounproject.com
Specialist areas

Technicians and technologists use a wide range of materials to design and construct appliances and work in four specialist areas:

  • prosthodontic technicians design and make dentures
  • conservation technicians specialise in crown and bridge work
  • orthodontic technicians make braces to correct tooth positions
  • maxillofacial technicians’ work is based in hospital oral surgery, ophthalmic, cancer and burns units, helping to reconstruct the faces of patients damaged by accident or disease
Clinical dental technicians

Clinical dental technicians are dental technicians who have undertaken specific clinical training to enable them to design, create, construct, modify and fit removeable dental appliances for patients.

In this role, you would be able to provide dentures direct to patients with no natural teeth, or work with and to the prescription of a dentist to provide partial dentures for patients with some teeth.

This is an interesting option for dental technicians who would like to have direct contact with patients. An important part of the role is to check on the patient’s general dental welfare.

Entry requirements

To work as a dental technician/dental technologist, you must be registered with the General Dental Council (GDC). To register, you will need to have successfully completed a GDC-approved course.

As well as knowing about the properties of the necessary materials to construct dental appliances, you will need an excellent understanding of dental and facial anatomy. This is a highly skilled job and you might also have some artistic ability.

Dental technician courses

GDC-recognised courses lead to qualifications such as the BTEC National Diploma in Dental Technology, (for entry to which you will normally be required to have at least four GCSEs at grade C or above or the equivalent), a foundation degree (in which case you’ll normally need to be employed in a trainee dental technician role) or a BSc (Hons) degree in dental technology (for which A-levels or equivalent qualifications are usually required).

You can take the BTEC National Diploma or foundation degree course on a full-time basis or by obtaining a post as a trainee dental technician and taking the course part time. BSc (Hons) degrees are usually full-time at a university/dental school.

Use the NHS Health Careers course finder to find out which organisations provide courses in dental technology.