Retraining as an electrician.

[Sammo123]

Morning,

I've been working in the motor industry since I left school (16 years ago) and I've really had enough of it. I've been thinking about going to evening school to retrain as an electrician but I'm not really sure where to start. What courses do I need to take and once I've got the qualifications will anyone actually employ me with no practical experience?

Any help would be greatly appreciated as if I go for it then I want to have it all sorted to start evening school in September.

Cheers,

Sammo

[Geffg]

My advice would be to train doing gas instead. I'm an electrician and for some reason I find electricians if your working for a company aren't treated with the respect we once used to and deserve.Gas engineers earn more and can earn more with personal work.
It is hard to get employed as a newly trained electrician and harder still to get the pay you deserve.
I have a couple of mates who are gas engineers and they earn more and find getting jobs easier.

[200Plus Club]

When we interview for electricians we tend to not give as much credence to recently "re-trained" people if there are "time served" apprentice trained sparks with experience up against them. It's just the way of the world, experience is everything unfortunately but if you can get a foot in the door then in time you can do ok. NVQ LVL 3 is the modern standard equivalent to the older C&G, 2 years or more to get there as opposed to a 6 month retrain would be what we would look at. £30-35k min seems to be the earnings rate in South Yorkshire for decent sparks plus overtime.

I do concur that good gas engineers we use seem to be earning a bit more and they are all younger guys typically, £50k is the figure I hear with overtime for them, but again after training you need to be lucky and get a foot in the door somewhere.
Good luck whatever you choose

[200Plus Club]

forgot to add, good refrigeration engineers who do on call (reactive maintenance types) are typically pulling £45-50k pa with overtime and on call allowances, but its very busy work.

[hairyben]

Yeah like said gas engineers have it easier/ more cache for no real reason... a lot more people are willing to bodge electrics than gas or even plumbing, the "starting out" is a lot harder and even established sparks like me who should be training the odd kid up are finding too much competition to want to commit to employing someone.

Mind, that said maybe these things happen in cycles and if everyone now becomes a gas man then they'll have it harder than us in a few years... I think it will turn around as people discover the fallacy of cheap jobs.

[200Plus Club]

Yea it's like the big "£50k plumber" headlines from a few yrs ago. Maybe in London, not up north, I can get any number of domestic type plumbers for £25-28k without struggling (pension scheme plus good hols also) but anyone with a gas certificate or specialist skills can earn better at present.