Comparing Electrical Training Courses Across The UK
For many people, a career within the electrical industry remains an interesting and varied choice. Often (and more correctly) referred to as ‘Electro-Mechanical Engineering’, we’ll simply refer to it as the Electrical Industry for the sake of simplicity here. Furthermore, we will focus on the UK market and the domestic and commercial elements rather than those from elsewhere around the world. We will begin by reviewing the main issues first and come back to the ‘add-ons’ later, because of the huge number of options available as a career within this subject.
We consider that there are two ways to enter the electrical market. Along with apprenticeships for school leavers, students entering the field at a later phase in their life now have an alternative to more traditional amateur routes. There are two sets of people for consideration firstly the ‘Junior Entrants’ and secondly the ‘Mature Entrants’.
Many Mature Entrants enter the market so they don’t have to rely on others, especially when they can work on their own building ideas and not have to pay for anyone else to help them. Those who join as Junior Entrants, on the other hand, appear to do so with the aim of joining an established electrical firm – in order to gain further qualifications and experience whilst picking up practical and other work-place skills. Often a young apprentice will be in their first job since leaving school, and will therefore have a host of ancillary skills to learn during their first few years as a working adult.
The different ways into electrical work have two distinct types of training: Junior Entrants are heavily linked with NVQ’s (or the Scottish equivalent – SVQ’s.) As part of the training program an NVQ would be a requirement to attain. As a result students often have to find their own work programmes to give them the relevant testing and course work covered by most apprenticeships.
Many mature students gain entry into the market without the NVQ element, and simply choose the most commercially practical route to self employed work. Such as obtaining documentation that gives them the best chance to gain from their training endeavours and thereby the best financial rewards. Whilst this may seem to reduce the overall qualification set, this meets the trade requirements for the areas involved, and thus provides a quicker and more direct commercial route to the market.
Salaries are often simply broken down to those that relate to self -employed people and those in general employment. Obviously, with self-employment, there is the added issue of whether the Entrant is part-time (working around another job) or full-time; we will concentrate on full-time. Income levels are also dictated by experience and knowledge gained – usually proven via an accredited proficiency or certification level.
With the right level of experience, ‘Junior Entrants’ salaries can rise considerably from twelve to thirty thousand pounds per annum. On the other hand experienced self-employed electricians have been known to earn around 70 thousand or more within the UK. Irrespective of this salary level many self-employed people also need to manage extra business costs such as tools, clothes and vans. Earmarked within this is the need to cover additional expenses such as accountancy or insurance. Whilst there is lots of available work, a severe skills shortage means electricians are very much in demand. If a student wanted to work every day of the week this would be possible in some areas. To be fair, high salaries bounded about by the press do require long working hours or help to achieve them.
Firstly, it is worth pointing out that the working week between the Junior and Mature electricians can vary enormously. Most of the work for Junior Entrant electricians will be on a simple 9-5, Monday to Friday basis. That aside the Mature market is equally affected by when their clients are available – this is especially so within the domestic sector, where evening and weekend work predominates. This alters quite a bit, with lots of self employed electricians gaining much of their income from small office work, which is predominantly Monday to Friday 9am-5pm.
To be fair it’s often the boss of a company who states the type of specialist knowledge that Junior Entrants gain whilst in their employ. However, many mature entrants gain extra skills by learning those trades such as gas and plumbing work. This gives them the chance to complete work for domestic clients without having to sub contract jobs out every time.
A new trade example is that of the ‘Green Engineer’. This new service to the industry could fit into the overall skill-set of an electrician. The chance to win some big employment and business advantages within the governmental as well as the traditional growth sector means that this area could be attractive to both Junior and Mature Entrants alike.
(C) Scott Edwards 2009. Look at Electrical Colleges or www.CareerChangeCourses.co.uk/ncachco.html.
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