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n180

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Hi all,

I'm looking to become an electrician (career change). Looked into various training centres like OLCI, RFTraining, New Career Skills etc. They all claim that there's a massive shortage of electricians at the moment in the UK, that there should be plenty of work for a qualified sparky. But of course they would say that.

I want to hear it form you guys already in the industry (so that I can get some real info instead of a sales pitch), whats the market like these days? Is it easy for you to find work? Is there plenty of it out there? I'm talking about working for a company and/or working for yourself. Or are most electricians leaving the industry due to lack of work, or sitting at home twiddling their thumbs?
 
I went self employed a year ago as i got so fed up with hunting for a decent job after my previous employer went bust. In such a tight market some companies i came accross didnt need to look after the blokes.. So didnt, and all the good companies i heard of didnt have job vacancies as the guys didnt leave :) working for myself is really enjoyable but a real hard slog for not alot of fruit.
 
for every job going, there are 100 electricians ( fully qualified , time served ) after it. these training centres are, at best, liars. £50,000? forget it. agencies are asking for qualified sparks with 2330, 2382 and 2391 , paying £7 - £9 /hour.
 
Would'nt recommend it either, apart from getting all the qualifications you need to do the job, there are so many other hoops you have to jump through, which often mean paying a shed load of money, i.e NICEIC, MCS membership, then there is the cost of all the tools you will need. The wage isnt great and if you want to go down the self employed route you will need your own van, main contractors like nothing better than to stich up the poor suby just trying to get by, by giving them all the work they don't want to sign off themselfes. If I could turn back the clock 20 years I would have been an air con engineer or a gas engineer.
 
Was looking at the on-line site of the Cyrus Mail newspaper last week, and noticed an advert for Faraday Training (or something like that) Seems they have a training course center in Limmersol now!!!! So i guess it won't be long before the Electrical Trainee boys will be operating in Cyprus too. They are Offering free seminars to get there claws into prospective Muppets... :smartass2: They may even be thinking along the lines of exporting Cyp Electrical Trainee's to the UK....lol!!! :D :evil2: :disguise:
 
Yep me thinks the bubble is bursting on this although to be fair its not the guys who want in who are to blame but these training companies. Just like when BG visits your house and they say the DB or CU as they say now is dangerous its only when you say put that in writing you get Could be dangerous So "earn £50k a year" turns into "earn potentially £50k a year"

So n180 at least you had the brains to check first but as I have always said its your shout
 
Whatever you do, don't go with the likes of New Career Skills (hard selling rip off merchants)

I shopped around and found Able Skills in Dartford and it will cost me a quarter of the price that NCS wanted. Plus they also do the 2330, 2391 etc if you want to go for more than the minimum for domestic work.
 
I dont know why people automatically go for these training providers. I got 2330 level 3, part p, pat testing, management of pat testing, regs and 2392 inspection and testing for £900 at my local college.

See what the colleges around you are offering.

There are so many factors that can make your journey either impossible or relatively easy.

i mean it depends on how old you are, if youve got any contacts in the industry etc

Do you want to just be a domestic part pee-er or a fully qualified electrician?

Doing the courses and passing them will be the easy bit. Finding a company to take you on to do your time onsite is darn near impossible.

I would also say the whole "theres a shortage of electricians" schtick is absolute BS.
 
There's a lot of rumours and BS floating around out there at the minute. Training providers are just after cash and getting their pass statistics in the high 90% area, hindsight in fantastic.

I left the Army last year and did the Electrical Trainee course (it was 6, does that make me any better?), got the usual Part P, 2382, 2392 and 2391. After sending out over 30 speculative CV's and applying for numerous jobs the best I can get at the minute is agency work which is sketchy at best. My agency averages around £12.50PH so not too bad for now, at least I'm out on the ground meeting time served electricians and learning skills every day and getting recognised for actually not being a know it all Electrical Trainee. I pride myself in doing a good job and providing good customer service and will always ask if unsure.

Having the qualifications is one thing, how you use them is important. If you fancy a career change then go for it, nothings stopping you but finding work will be hard until you get your foot in the door, it just takes one employer to 'give you a chance'. Good luck with whatever you decide and just remember, this time next year Rodney, we'll be millionaires...
 
It's blatantly clear why people choose the 5 week course over the proper structured college method, because they get 'qualified' quicker and can start earning that 50k+ a year quicker! A couple of grand is a small price to pay when your going to make it back in just a few weeks work right?
 
I done my part p back in january hoping work would fly my way unfortunatly it hasnt its ticked over had some cracking work off a generous lad on here, Iam still working full time as a maintenance man in a factory which i do appriciate but want out, am gradually getting there tho got most my essentials van tools etc just need that 1 contract that will give me the courage to leave the factory i pray this will come just takes patience i suppose but if its want you want you have to chase it till you cant physically chase anymore, go for it mate
 
I done my part p back in january hoping work would fly my way unfortunatly it hasnt its ticked over had some cracking work off a generous lad on here, Iam still working full time as a maintenance man in a factory which i do appriciate but want out, am gradually getting there tho got most my essentials van tools etc just need that 1 contract that will give me the courage to leave the factory i pray this will come just takes patience i suppose but if its want you want you have to chase it till you cant physically chase anymore, go for it mate

Why are you moving from a maintenance spark to installation? Im currently doing an apprenticeship as a maintenance spark / electrical engineer
 
for every job going, there are 100 electricians ( fully qualified , time served ) after it. these training centres are, at best, liars. £50,000? forget it. agencies are asking for qualified sparks with 2330, 2382 and 2391 , paying £7 - £9 /hour.


Thats because agencies are now shafting harder and faster than ever before, soft targets are now in abundance and they are chasing all the medium/big jobs to make sure nobody ends up taken on books-in these days, books in = more rights, better chance of pension+ better job security, and it "reads better on the C.V" than agency work (reason given to me for a job rejection once years ago was "agency work doesn't read well on the C.V, and it doesn't look good for us if we take you on") and an agency just needs to text you at 7pm on a Friday to tell you not to come back on Monday,so you get a wasted weekend when you could have been looking on Thursday or earlier when they knew but you didn't...


beep beep...

opens...

scrolls....





from: Agency

UR Pumped, beg for p45,
holiday pay non-existent,
lost UR timesheet so send it
Again, Umbrella fee for
wages is £37.00
BYE


The reason behind not taking on books in as opposed to Agency could possibly be that agency staff might be classed as a "financial liability" /Expenditure on the balance sheets in the same way as Tool Hire can be deducted for tax reasons.....just like renting a digger or a multifunction tester or a scissor lift for the same amount of time......claim for it at the end of each financial period for reductions in tax....that might be part of the appeal,incidentally you will see a lot of job ads just now looking for 2 or 3 "checkable " references, one agency tactic is to get a lot of applicants to give the contact details (or even just the company name) of previous employers and then pester them to see if they are interested in having agency workers, the reasoning behind this is that you have left there so you might need replacing, the agency don't care if your old job was naff and they might be sending somebody to a bad place, they just see the sales pitch and £££, if they really do have a job for you, they will just look at your C.V and start selling you, if you're no use they will just bin you after a week(if customer/company complains on phone etc) and send somebody else to the job as is common agency practice, so most asking for "checkable" references are just digging for new opportunities to sell their middle man services.....
don't tell of your current employer details unless you really trust them either, I have heard of Sparks getting given their jotters (marching orders/pumped/paid off) because an agency has phoned where they currently work and said something along the lines of "we heard so and so is leaving so we thought you would be interested in our services" before the worker has even decided to leave, just because they asked about with the wrong agencies to see what else was out there... classic agency "trawl"
 
If you're in a good area and you plan to go self employed, there is still potential to make very decent money IF you can get together enough clients to bring in 50-150 decent jobs a year. I'd only suggest this rout if you have already got good contacts in the building trade and someone who is willing to take you on as a mate for a minimum of 6 months. This route also doesn't require much in the way of qualifications.
If you plan to work for a big company you'll have to spend the next 50 years and several million pounds getting qualified up to year eyelids after which you will be rewarded with a handsome £7 an hour to graft your nuts off all day.

Probably wouldn't bother with the latter at all, and only do the former if you know the right people to get your foot in the door.
 
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Its hard work and you need to put alot of time in chasing work and making links. I have been self employed since 2004 and its only since 2009 i am actually getting some good contacts it takes time.
You only need to go on google and type in electrician to see how many dots pop up in your area! Shortage is far from the truth probably swamped is more like it.
good luck
 
Ive nearly finished my nvq level 3 apprenticeship, it has been a nightmare

the only guy who wanted to take me on permenantly (should i say permenant subbie) would only pay me 50 a day max and would text me a 4 in the morning saying he wernt working tmoz cause he been and got sihtfaced that night.

The amount of people who took me on and after 3 weeks i was back down to 2-3 days drove me mad.

a lot of people want you to pay for your own petrol i.e transport too jobs , parking and you always get the ones who want you to buy tools from there account so they can claim the tax back.

I dont want to put anyone off , but unless you get in with a big company , which is hard too find,it is pretty ****.

I got lucky and got on the local college apprenticeship when i was looking to retrain , dont get me wrong, i love what i do now but i would not do it again , i dont know if i have just had a bad experience while i was training

at the moment i am working for a good firm and i have been in constant work for well over 4 months but even they are now cutting back hours ,.

My point just being is that if you want to go self employed then you better get to know the lady at the jobcentre quite well and be prepared to fall out with quite a few employers over money and pay dates.


( sorry to be on a downer , i just wanted him to see how it really it is for a lot of self employed people)
 
If you're in a good area and you plan to go self employed, there is still potential to make very decent money IF you can get together enough clients to bring in 50-150 decent jobs a year. I'd only suggest this rout if you have already got good contacts in the building trade and someone who is willing to take you on as a mate for a minimum of 6 months. This route also doesn't require much in the way of qualifications.
If you plan to work for a big company you'll have to spend the next 50 years and several million pounds getting qualified up to year eyelids after which you will be rewarded with a handsome £7 an hour to graft your nuts off all day.

Probably wouldn't bother with the latter at all, and only do the former if you know the right people to get your foot in the door.

probably the quote to why the industry is the way it is..
 
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