Plenty of jobs out there?

[n180]

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?

 

[vaughant]

Hi op,haven't read it all but my advice is to train to become a maintenance electrician like I am.
I did a four year apprenticeship but a lot of firms take adult apprentices on for decent wages as they know you won't up and leave at the end of it like a lot of the young lads do.
To me it's the only way you'll ever enjoy it and actually get something out of it,domestic commercial site work is pretty boring,very skilled but quite repetitive,fault finding,maintenance and installation are a lot more enjoyable,you get more respect (from what I can gather) and a decent regular wage with pension,holidays,sick scheme,benefits and your not grafting for 12 hours a day lugging **** about and bending conduit etc with some ----- of a boss screaming at you cos you've used 1 fitting too many,maintenance is much more relaxed.
Faultfinding can be mega pressure,but if your trained properly you'll cope,I'm confident I can walk into most fault situations and as long as there's paperwork and manuals there I can get it going or at worst point out the right direction.
Often maintenance hold the cards against management cos without us on their side there's gonna be little chance of them getting it going,I've always had pretty good respect off management,the ones that tried it on soon found out just how long it can take to alter a limit switch or hidden proxy because they can't read a diagram to find it.
Just my two penneth but put it this way,were deep in a recession,have been for a few years and I'm on for £46000 this year,I'm only on £13 per hour but I get time and half for any o/t I do mon-sat and double-time Sunday,I get 10 days off straight every month,every other weekend off thur -mon,never work more than three days in a row (excluding o/t of course) and still get fortnight at Xmas and 3 weeks off in the summer.
Yes,I've got nearly 20 years in this game under my belt but this is far from a well paid maintenance gig,I was earning £55-60000 in ford and nowhere near killing myself,that was 4-5 years ago as well.

If you can,do it,save the money from the Electrical Trainee course and get something you can take with you all over the world.

Don't believe me?Pm engineer 54,netblindpaul or Tony and see how those guys have got on over the years.

Good luck however it pans out.