The Budget Room

For many people, an interesting and varied choice often means a career within the electrical industry. From here on we will use the phrase of Electrical Industry to explain the more accurate term of “Electro-Mechanical Engineering”. Also, for ease we will concentrate on those principles that sit within the domestic and commercial markets for the UK. By starting on the main subjects and checking the ‘add-ons’ later on we can review the centre of the electrical industry.

Basically there are two clear ways to gain admission into the electrical market. The first is for those wishing to train via a more traditional apprenticeship route, and the second is for people who are entering the field at a later stage in life. Throughout this document we will simply refer to two types of people the ‘Junior’ and the ‘Mature’ entrants.

Mature Entrants who join the industry later on do so with the aim of working for themselves, usually as a one person business. By contrast, Junior entrants would seek to work with an established electrical firm and build their skill-sets as they train. To be fair, young apprentices leaving school will have a lot of supplementary skills to learn during their early years as a working adult.

Entry has two separate approaches to teaching. Junior Entrants are heavily linked with NVQ’s (or the Scottish equivalent – SVQ’s.) Whilst the core syllabus is relatively similar to non-NVQ commercial training, there is a particular requirement to attain the actual NVQ qualifications as part of the overall training program. ‘Junior Entrants’ will have to be in an apprenticeship of some sort in order to achieve the testing and course work required.

Instead of seeking a work-based training environment, the Mature Entrant often seems to focus on working as a self employed person where different qualifications to NVQ’s are preferred. For example by concentrating on those qualifications aimed at giving them the best return from their training costs. This method may appear to reduce the levels of knowledge overall, but it does allow for an increase in the speed by which people enter and become more prevalent within the market.

In terms of typical earnings, we have two clear routes – those relating to employment and those for self-employment. Whilst self-employed people can choose the hours that they work, we assume that they are working full time for the purpose of this review. Certainly, whilst salary levels can be affected by knowledge and qualifications, they can also be affected by competence and aptitude.

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. It should be remembered however that a self employed person must often bear additional costs for items such as vehicles, tools and clothing. Self employed people also have to allow for added expenses. In the UK there is a lot of work for electrical professions due to a short fall of current skilled people. In light of the above, a full seven day week is available to most people should they want it. Whilst figures of seventy to a hundred thousand are often bandied around in the press, they do not often inform you of the long hours you would need to work to achieve this.

For the most part there is a strong difference between the Junior and Mature Entrants’ working week. Electricians who are ‘Junior Entrants’ would work a simple 40 hour working week. But due to the needs of the domestic market the Mature Entrant is often more reliant upon when their client base gets back from work. With many self-employed electricians the core of their income comes from items such as business testing and installation and as such operates during the main part of the week.

Once a Junior Entrant is employed within a company, then any follow-on knowledge they gain is often down to the employers’ activity as opposed to anything else. Then again, the mature entrant can even go outside of the electrical field to gas work or plumbing work for example. They can take on larger jobs and do all the work themselves then – which is a particularly great benefit to domestic clients.

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 curiosity of both Junior and Mature Electricians to this new industry is well founded especially when considering the power of the UK and the EEC markets in areas of growth and governmental projects.

Copyright 2009 Scott Edwards. Pop to Electrician Courses or Click HERE.