Any CAD Technicians on here?

Author
Discussion

pattieG

Original Poster:

194 posts

148 months

Wednesday 11th May 2016
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Currently employed as a CAD technician and the pay isn't great (just under 25k). Thinking about buying a license to use at home and doing some ad-hoc evening work for myself but I have no idea how much to charge? Would I charge by the hour or set a fixed price per drawing? Having done this job for a while I can make a pretty accurate guess at how long things will take.

The Beaver King

6,095 posts

194 months

Wednesday 11th May 2016
quotequote all
Ex-CAD Tech here, but I also deal with them day-to-day.

Your charge rate will vary depending on your ability, the type of drawings you are doing, your skill level and, most importantly, your speed. A standard 2D tracing job can be anywhere from £15-30 an hour (something like an 'As Fitted/Installed'). Anything that requires co-ordination/engineering is the top end of that scale.

3D modelling gets you into £40-50, but that includes co-ordination and some engineering. Anything design related creeps into £60-100 an hour, but you're at consultancy level by then.

You'll need to provide a bit more info to be honest; what industry are you in? How fast can you draw? Can you design/engineer? Do you 3D model? What packages do you use?

pattieG

Original Poster:

194 posts

148 months

Wednesday 11th May 2016
quotequote all
I currently work in civil engineering doing hydraulic structures like dams, weirs, etc. I can't imagine there is many local people who need a dam drawing. The packages I use are vanilla AutoCAD and Civil 3D and a little bit of sketchup in the past. I have done a few 3D renders as well.

May I ask what you moved onto from being a CAD Technician and how you got there?



The Beaver King

6,095 posts

194 months

Wednesday 11th May 2016
quotequote all
Civil Engineering is not a bad field to be in, although as you say, your location isn't great. Do you have any qualifications outside of CAD?

Personally I started as a CAD apprentice about 10 years ago in M&E Building Services; did my HVAC Building Services qualifications alongside that and used AutoCAD 2D and AutoCAD MEP.

Managed to secure a CAD role once I qualified at an offsite fabrication company and start using Autodesk CADDuct and Autodesk Inventor. Did that for a year or so before my boss realised I had a knack for estimating projects and dealing with clients. Ended up creating my own Estimating department and becoming Estimating Team Leader. Did that for a few more years before I was approached to take a Tendering Manager role at Balfour Beatty, which is where I am now. I specialise in offsite fabrication for construction and I'm currently on track to make Director level within the next 2 years.

Important things to take from the above; 50% of my path was about hard work and determination, the other 50% was networking and knowing the right people. As a CAD Engineer I was pretty anonymous in the industry, aside from knowing other CAD guys. Estimating gave me access to senior people at other companies (we mainly dealt with externals), which greatly helped my career.

Construction and CAD are two close knit industries, with lots of familiar faces after a few years. Whilst you can have a comfortable and risk-free career as a staff CAD guy, the real money is made contracting. That requires some really important skills:

  • Networking
  • Adaptability
  • Extreme micro-management of your own finances
  • The ability to travel
  • Experience
  • A strong work ethic
These sound like normal skills, but contract CAD really pushes these to the limit.

You must know enough people to get recommendations for work and to be able to find work when it is quiet. You must be able to easily and quickly slot into an alien office environment and work long hours if required. You need to have a pot of emergency funds (a couple of thousand a least) for quiet periods or if you are required to relocate quickly. Travelling is essential, the work is all over the country and you must be able to get to it. Experience comes with time, but it can be difficult to get your foot in the door initially. You must be completely focused on your work and disciplined enough to work evenings and weekends if required; none of this 'I can't be bothered stuff'. You literally have your reputation keeping your career afloat.

What you do going forward really depends on your current level of experience, qualifications and how tied down you are.

If you've got a few years under your belt, can use most industry standard software and are happy to travel/stay away from home, then you can probably make reasonable money contracting. If not, you need to find another company or push hard in your current one.

Timbo_S2

531 posts

262 months

Wednesday 11th May 2016
quotequote all
Get yourself to a decent level with civil 3D and Revit. Knowledge of some Bim authoring software and the workflows involved between the various packages would help massively.

We use the entire Autodesk suite (have a token flex license system, so all platforms are available to us) and have our own in house developed Authoring software (which allows site teams to review, comment, detect clashes, plan etc). Puts us in a good place in the market. We are also very experienced in completing large infrastructure projects to a level 2 Bim standard. Get experience in this field (particularly infrastructure, there are a lot of Bim guys who are experienced on buildings with revit only) and you will be very employable, with a much improved package (some of my guys are double your previous, with car etc).


Type R Tom

3,859 posts

148 months

Wednesday 11th May 2016
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I looked into this for a bit of pocket money but I found websites like freelance.com means there are people out there doing easy work for about £1 per hour.

bucksmanuk

2,311 posts

169 months

Thursday 12th May 2016
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The Beaver King above has it all covered.
JM2PW - When a lot of mechanical draughting was still on the drawing board, (late 80’s) there were many draughtsmen where I used to work who did minor civil drawings at home, and a decent drawing broad wasn’t that expensive – certainly 2nd hand ones. Nobody ever made any decent money at it- (max was 1/4 of their take home pay-ish) it was just extra beer tokens.
If you do it properly - now you need a decent PC, the software license, and more importantly the indemnity insurance. With all this extra financial risk, I am not aware of anyone doing this work now, there will be someone, but I personally don’t know of any.
But
You probably have a PC at home anyway- you’re on PH by definition, so this might not be an extra cost.
You can rent a licence on a monthly/quarterly/yearly basis. Some companies allow people to pick up on the works licenses for those special jobs at home, like new kitchens, Scalextric track planning, race car chassis...etc.… but your current employer needs to make sure your PC is clean and to “their” specification. AV software etc.… I was quoted £500 for a month of SolidWorks on a rental basis. I do defence stuff, so picking up on remote licenses from work for CAD is a no-no.
Your indemnity insurance may (?) be a lot cheaper than mine, if you aren’t doing calculation/signing work off yourself. Mine’s nearly a grand a year. If people are doing the above work for a £1/hour, you would better off doing bar work.
Instead of doing drawing, and you have sussed this yourself - why not head towards rendering, photo realistic imaging, animations etc… ?

48Valves

1,926 posts

208 months

Thursday 12th May 2016
quotequote all
I'm in building services and there is good money to be had at the minute. There are people earning good money thieving a living because they can do a bit of Revit. When in fact they have no idea what they are modelling or how to properly coordinate services.

I will only employ people who can demonstrate they know what they are modelling as I can teach them to use the software in a couple of days.

If you want to earn really money doing cad, you will need to be self employed and working at a main contractors. Good money can still be had working for consultants though. If you work where I think you do some of he contract staff there were getting towards the £30p/h mark. I don't know if that is still the case as I don't have contact with them any-more.

If you are prepared to go work in London you may have more options.

and put BIM on your CV.

48Valves

1,926 posts

208 months

Thursday 12th May 2016
quotequote all
Sorry for the slight thread hijack op. But it might be of interest to you.

Timbo_S2 said:
Get yourself to a decent level with civil 3D and Revit. Knowledge of some Bim authoring software and the workflows involved between the various packages would help massively.

We use the entire Autodesk suite (have a token flex license system, so all platforms are available to us) and have our own in house developed Authoring software (which allows site teams to review, comment, detect clashes, plan etc). Puts us in a good place in the market. We are also very experienced in completing large infrastructure projects to a level 2 Bim standard. Get experience in this field (particularly infrastructure, there are a lot of Bim guys who are experienced on buildings with revit only) and you will be very employable, with a much improved package (some of my guys are double your previous, with car etc).
Timbo, It would be interesting to find out how you go about delivering infrastructure projects to L2 standards.

I see you are just up the road from me. Have you heard of the Regional BIM Hubs? We have just started one in for East Anglia and the next event is in the 17th in Cambridge. See link below for details.

It's mostly buildings people whe attend but the leadership group would be genuinely interested in getting an insight into how the infra boys work.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/soft-landings-digit...

Timbo_S2

531 posts

262 months

Thursday 12th May 2016
quotequote all
48Valves said:
Timbo, It would be interesting to find out how you go about delivering infrastructure projects to L2 standards.

I see you are just up the road from me. Have you heard of the Regional BIM Hubs? We have just started one in for East Anglia and the next event is in the 17th in Cambridge. See link below for details.

It's mostly buildings people whe attend but the leadership group would be genuinely interested in getting an insight into how the infra boys work.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/soft-landings-digit...
Thanks, I know one of the speakers and will try to get along to this! I sit on a few committees regarding BIM (particularly as I work for a Contractor, and use BIM for Infrastructure) so am quite used to events being building-focussed!

thanks for the heads-up.

Dg504

262 posts

162 months

Thursday 12th May 2016
quotequote all
Sorry to hijack but this has really struck a chord.

You'll see from my past posts that I had no idea what to pursue career wise and to be honest am still looking.

I've since got into a modular construction on the finance side which involves lots of costings and modelling but these are all excel based. I have learned sketch up and relux to help us out during the early stages (picked it up quickly and really enjoyed it but couldn't give it much time) - is getting into CAD and this type of modelling a case of starting from the bottom?

If anyone can offer any advice to get started I'm all ears, also if anyone is London based and can chat I will buy the beers!

48Valves

1,926 posts

208 months

Saturday 14th May 2016
quotequote all
Dg504 said:
Sorry to hijack but this has really struck a chord.

You'll see from my past posts that I had no idea what to pursue career wise and to be honest am still looking.

I've since got into a modular construction on the finance side which involves lots of costings and modelling but these are all excel based. I have learned sketch up and relux to help us out during the early stages (picked it up quickly and really enjoyed it but couldn't give it much time) - is getting into CAD and this type of modelling a case of starting from the bottom?

If anyone can offer any advice to get started I'm all ears, also if anyone is London based and can chat I will buy the beers!
I believe that modular and prefab is going to be big business in construction soon. So I would say you are in a good starting place. I can see more main contractors taking on modular/prefab consultants to advise on how best to use modular.

Can you speak to your management and ask them how you can progress through the company.

The Beaver King

6,095 posts

194 months

Monday 16th May 2016
quotequote all
48Valves said:
I believe that modular and prefab is going to be big business in construction soon. So I would say you are in a good starting place. I can see more main contractors taking on modular/prefab consultants to advise on how best to use modular.
I've been hearing this for 10 years; still waiting hehe

It is getting better though; like all build philosophies and construction methods, it's a slow change. As more young PMs come up through the ranks, it will get better.

Unfortunately, it is still a hard battle convincing project teams to use offsite construction.

The Beaver King

6,095 posts

194 months

Monday 16th May 2016
quotequote all
Dg504 said:
Sorry to hijack but this has really struck a chord.

You'll see from my past posts that I had no idea what to pursue career wise and to be honest am still looking.

I've since got into a modular construction on the finance side which involves lots of costings and modelling but these are all excel based. I have learned sketch up and relux to help us out during the early stages (picked it up quickly and really enjoyed it but couldn't give it much time) - is getting into CAD and this type of modelling a case of starting from the bottom?

If anyone can offer any advice to get started I'm all ears, also if anyone is London based and can chat I will buy the beers!
I've got 10 years in offsite construction; predominately M&E services, but we do dabble in structural and building fabric options. Happy to answer any questions, but would need a bit more detail regarding your role.

What field of modular construction are you in? Are you cost planning side or engineering?

CAD is a very useful skill to have, but only really relevant if you are engineering or design. My role is pre-construction, but I use a lot of CAD to develop designs for costing and prototyping. I also use it a lot for bid packages. It is a varied field, which many big players have jumped into but fail to properly utilise.

I work for one of the big construction companies, who have had a prefab arm for over 10 years and even we don't use it properly....

andye30m3

3,451 posts

253 months

Monday 16th May 2016
quotequote all
I've been using CAD in an architectural role for 15 years or so.

As someone else mentioned I'd look at getting up to speed with Revit /3D and BIM. I'm working on my first BIM model at the moment, as I've recently changed jobs and despite moving from Vetorworks to Archicad it wasn't all that difficult to pick up.

I believe all government projects now have to be BIM level 2 and from what I've seen there is a bit of a lack of people who can do it and a lack of people who have any real interest in achieving it.

The Beaver King

6,095 posts

194 months

Monday 16th May 2016
quotequote all
andye30m3 said:
I believe all government projects now have to be BIM level 2 and from what I've seen there is a bit of a lack of people who can do it and a lack of people who have any real interest in achieving it.
Simply put, it is because Revit is completely gash.

BIM is being pushed heavily, which is fine. The problem is that Autodesk have convinced the 'powers that be' that Revit is the BIM software and we should all be using it; except it is uninspiringly mediocre at drawing buildings and even worse at M&E. How the fk you can push a software as BIM when all the mechanical fittings are generic no-name items....

Still, Revit 2017 is out shortly. We've been running the beta this month and it is a huge step forward. It is far more like Fabrication for the M&E stuff now; so hopefully this will get the industry more interested.

surveyor

17,763 posts

183 months

Monday 16th May 2016
quotequote all
I've got drawings coming out of my ears. Not helped by the drawing contractor that I was using being completely gash. Dropped them.

Simple 2D floor layouts to Land Registry standard if anyone is interested smile


48Valves

1,926 posts

208 months

Tuesday 17th May 2016
quotequote all
The Beaver King said:
andye30m3 said:
I believe all government projects now have to be BIM level 2 and from what I've seen there is a bit of a lack of people who can do it and a lack of people who have any real interest in achieving it.
Simply put, it is because Revit is completely gash.

BIM is being pushed heavily, which is fine. The problem is that Autodesk have convinced the 'powers that be' that Revit is the BIM software and we should all be using it; except it is uninspiringly mediocre at drawing buildings and even worse at M&E. How the fk you can push a software as BIM when all the mechanical fittings are generic no-name items....

Still, Revit 2017 is out shortly. We've been running the beta this month and it is a huge step forward. It is far more like Fabrication for the M&E stuff now; so hopefully this will get the industry more interested.
Revit being gash for MEP entirely depends on what you use it for. With my consultants hat on it's great. Not without issues but what software isn't. Don't get me started on cable tray.

If I was an M&E subby I would agree with you. Cadduct or whatever it's called these days would be my weapon of choice. Even then it has issues if you really want to push it and create pipe spools from it. Then you need plant 3D and P&ID. Which is possibly the most 'BIM' software I've ever used.

I can see fab parts in Revit causing me more problem than they solve.


48Valves

1,926 posts

208 months

Tuesday 17th May 2016
quotequote all
The Beaver King said:
48Valves said:
I believe that modular and prefab is going to be big business in construction soon. So I would say you are in a good starting place. I can see more main contractors taking on modular/prefab consultants to advise on how best to use modular.
I've been hearing this for 10 years; still waiting hehe

It is getting better though; like all build philosophies and construction methods, it's a slow change. As more young PMs come up through the ranks, it will get better.

Unfortunately, it is still a hard battle convincing project teams to use offsite construction.
I know exactly what you mean. I was doing huge prefab jobs 10/12 years ago. It amuses me now when I hear people talking about it like its some great new thing that they have invented.

At this very minute I'm sat in a BnB trying to think of a way I can create a new angle to do my MSc thesis on BIM and prefab.

Elneld

104 posts

149 months

Tuesday 17th May 2016
quotequote all
I'd be interested. I'm a mechanical designer but have done most cad related work in the past. Site layouts etc.
I'd be very interested.