Technicially in the UK there is no requirement for specific training to become a nail technician by any governing body. Certain Borough Councils, specifically in London, but there are others, are starting to require NVQ certification, but not all. Best to check in your particular area.
You will need certified training to obtain insurance to work on clients, but again, sadly in the UK, it is not a legal requirement but any tech worth their salt is going to make sure they are properly trained and insured. Those who do neither rarely stay in the business for very long as there are plenty of well qualified, insured techs out there offering great services at reasonable costs, those who try to do it 'on the cheap' quickly find out there are no short cuts or cheap cuts to become good and creating a lasting business.
With regard to where to train there are plenty of options, use the search option on here for hundreds of posts about it. Training is probably the number one question raised on here, along with how to resolve lifting.
You need to do your research and understand what you want to actually train in, for instance, you say 'Gel Nails' - is that Gel Polish or Gel Extensions/Enhancements? Within the industry 'Gel Nails' are extensions, 'Gel Polish' is the process of applying a light cured polish to natural nails. The training for them are completely different so you need to clarify in your own mind what exactly you want to offer and be sure to use the right industry terminology or you will get sidetracked into the wrong training.
Consider the period of time the training is done in and compare providers. For instance CND (SweetSquared is the UK distributor/training provider) offer a Shellac (Gel Polish) Beginners course. This is purely for learning how to apply their hybrid gel polish product, no extensions, tipping, sculpting,etc. just application techniques, product knowledge and skills, etc. and the course is 2 days with home learning. CND is well known around the world for it's products and has won awards internationally for it's training and products. If they say it takes 2 days to train in you that one product, you can pretty much guarantee that's what is required.
Some random 'training school' on Groupon/Wowcher/whatever offering 'Nail Tech Complete course' taken in 1/2 days, supposidly able to teach you how to do Gel Polish, Gel Extensions and L&P Extensions and Manicure, is clearly not going to cut the mustard and ultimately you'll end up paying for more better training later or abandoning the business entirely.
Remember 2 things when it comes to training.....Good training ain't cheap, and cheap training ain't good....and 'buy cheap, buy twice'....both have never been more prevalent than in the nail training business.
