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  • Re-Training (job content)
  • sammaratti
    Free Member

    I am thinking of starting a college course or similar and learning a trade.

    I am employed currently and on the right side of 30 (just). I do have a stable job but its not really what I want to be doing forever and is very stressful I must add.

    Just a post really to see if anybody else on here has done anything similar or could recommend a trade to me.
    My P60 for the year just gone read 28K so would be ideally looking for a trade which would return similar with the chance of earning more in the future.

    The course will have to either be in the evenings or possible one day a week.

    Thanks in advance

    Big-Dave
    Free Member

    I was in a similar position a while ago. I knew that I wanted to change direction and move into a career where the longer I did it the more experienced I would become and more in demand (hopefully). I also wanted to become self employed. I dismissed most trades (not the most practical of people) and eventually settled on Pest Control as my new career. The following factors swung it for me:

    1 – I find it genuinely fascinating and enjoy the variety and working with customers directly

    2 – The training is accessible and not stupidly expensive. Plus, once qualified you can start trading straight away. In some trades this isn’t necessarily the case and you will need to start on the bottom rung to build up your skills base further.

    3 – Start up costs as a sole trader are actually quite small (about £4k for me including training and I had my first customer within a few days of my website going live)

    4 – It is a developing industry with lots of changes to come in the future

    5 – I have local competition but as long as I’m better than them in the quality of service I provide I will get customers and I know how to be better (I like to think)

    6 – The earning potential is decent (apparently, I’ve been going less than a year so still growing the business)

    7 – There is the potential to add on other things to my business such as site clearances and rubbish removal services (again quite cheap to set up)

    8 – The margins for a lot of the work I do can be very very attractive

    These factors are obviously quite specific to me and my situation at the time I decided to retrain but you may want to think along similar lines. Oh yes, I was on the wrong side of 30 when I made the jump to a new job 🙂

    Find something you really enjoy and can see yourself doing and wanting to get better at.

    sammaratti
    Free Member

    Thanks Dave, great post.

    I pretty much want to do exactly the same as what you are doing, I just need to find a skill/trade.

    The industry I am in, I have become very qualified in. The only problem is that, it is a very specific area where the qualifications and worthless except in what I do.

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    TheBrick
    Free Member

    Interesting post to me too BigDave. It funny how the system here seems to make it hard to retrain in the UK. I’m over in Canada working for a couple of weeks at the moment where it seems lot more common to retrain and its easier.

    mundiesmiester
    Free Member

    Respect Dave one of the most open, useful and informative responses in the nine years I have been on STW.
    Still couldn’t do it rats scare the bejeebus out of me

    Big-Dave
    Free Member

    Still couldn’t do it rats scare the bejeebus out of me

    Funnily enough once you start dealing with the various pests you very quickly get used to being around them. Plus I have a large hammer for dealing with rats.

    It took me a while to settle on pest control if I’m honest. It has some links to my previous life in the waste management industry which helped.

    I think whatever direction the OP decides to go in the thing to remember is that you need to be able to start making money from day one without huge amounts of outlay up front. A mate of mine has become an auto locksmith and has had to spend over £30k on equipment and training. He enjoys the work but is constantly worrying about the money his business is bringing in. He got into it purely to make as much cash as possible and is finding it hard. I want to make money, obviously, but the real enjoyment for me comes from being my own boss and looking after my customers. Whatever motivates you will influence which trade is the right one to move into.

    windyg
    Free Member

    Big Dave, I am looking for a career change and pest control is something I’m very interested in. Could you offer any advice, pro’s and cons, useful links etc
    Any help would be very much appreciated, all very daunting at present to give up a current job and go it alone.

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