Going back into a previous field of employment

[Auto Artisan]

I’ve been working as a remote engineer for around 7 years, predominantly fire and security. However the call out, travel and sometimes nightmare jobs make me question it all being honest, with mediocre pay. Previous I was a Web Developer, but a lot happened, and well it all fell apart. I do miss it as it’s always exciting seeing something that you’ve coded come to life on a screen. But it’s moved on so much it’s frightening.

Which brings me on to what about IT? Something along the lines of a IT Tech, Network Engineer. Are there any people on here that work in the IT field that could offer some advice

[dci]

Fire and security is an industry that traditionally struggles to hire and retain good, well trained people. The issue is that driving a van door to door changing batteries and replacing faulty PIRs is apprentice or newby level work and comes with low wages and poor conditions. With 7 years under your belt your in a good position and rather than starting again elsewhere from the botton I would be looking to kick on and specialise in something that would command a good wage or day rate. I work in the industry myself and Gallagher or Genetec trained engineers ways seem to be on a good screw especially in high security or MOJ. It's not uncommon to see rates of over £400 a day via an agency for a senior level enterprise engineer who can run jobs and do a little project management. Even if the agency is skimming 20% of the top thats still an attractive rate.

[Auto Artisan]

dci said:

Fire and security is an industry that traditionally struggles to hire and retain good, well trained people.

The issue is that driving a van door to door changing batteries and replacing faulty PIRs is apprentice or newby level work and comes with low wages and poor conditions.

With 7 years under your belt your in a good position and rather than starting again elsewhere from the botton I would be looking to kick on and specialise in something that would command a good wage or day rate.

I work in the industry myself and Gallagher or Genetec trained engineers ways seem to be on a good screw especially in high security or MOJ.

It's not uncommon to see rates of over £400 a day via an agency for a senior level enterprise engineer who can run jobs and do a little project management. Even if the agency is skimming 20% of the top thats still an attractive rate.

Fair enough. I don’t think I could do subby work as it’s not consistent work. I wouldn’t mind doing some PM work off the tools.

[Frimley111R]

You could retrain in IT but you'd be at the bottom of the ladder again. Depends on how you're fixed financially. Always lots of jobs out there if money isn't an issue, but for most people, it is..

[Crafty_]

Any chance that you could move in the same industry ? get away from support/call out more to safety testing or pre sales / design / install (or PM thereof) of systems ?