33. Worked as a nurse for 10 years. Carer since 18.
I'd love a trade. Joiner, plumber, spark.
Can I get anyone to take on a punctual, mature, hardworking and sensible person like me? No. I need to be 16 so I can be paid £125 a week as an apprentice.
It's rubbish. I can't see a way into my desired careers, I'd willingly take a pay drop to learn but I do need a living wage.
Hell I can even plaster to a good finish and fitted my own kitchen, bathroom and windows with no real issues.
Oh well.
It's no different trying to recruit in Engineering, I interviewed probably a dozen before finding a good design engineer.
Probably two, maybe three, actually lived up to the claims made on the CV's. Some were quite laughable, clearly just chancers, heads filled with dreams by agencies. One had driven for 3 hours, was given the wrong address, then it turned out the twit at the agency had totally misread his skills. I felt sorry for the poor lad.
Still, we found a good un' in the end.
I dread having to ever do it again.
olly2097 - Member - Block User - Quote
33. Worked as a nurse for 10 years. Carer since 18.
I left nursing at 33 as well, oddly enough.
Try here:
http://www.btplc.com/Careercentre/careersatbt/openreach/index.htm
Possibly not what you're looking for, but interesting with a lot of prospects.
I looked into being a sparky after being in retail for 9 years after uni and hating it. But there's no way in, I just don't understand why they don't take on aprentiships for older people - people who know what they want rather than some kid who is only doing it to get enough cash for their Corsa and getting legless on a weekend.
I've laboured for a builder and helped out an electrician, both friends of mine and if I ever lost my job I'd ask if they could take me on when they could.
just don't understand why they don't take on aprentiships for older people - people who know what they want rather than some kid who is only doing it to get enough cash for their Corsa and getting legless on a weekend.
With the apprentice levy this year there is no max age. We've just advertised for engineering apprentices and in 24 hours had prob 15 application ranging from school leavers to mid 30's.
As a company we are already looking at tweaking the scheme, so if an apprentice is older, we maybe pay a bit more but expect it to be completed quicker. Based on them being a bit more mature.
At 35, a four year apprenticeship is a big undertaking.
As a company we are already looking at tweaking the scheme, so if an apprentice is older, we maybe pay a bit more but expect it to be completed quicker. Based on them being a bit more mature.
At 35, a four year apprenticeship is a big undertaking.
Strange as mature students at uni doing book learning take 3 years to get a degree, where as tradesmen are always learning new skills and working around new problems.
Make an apprenticeship for a trade say 2 years, and then a year of probation on full pay.
I did a 4 year apprenticeship, and probably loved most of it.
Project, going back to what you were saying about sparkies, I've heard on the grape vine companies are employing loads of apprentices or sparks mates then having say two qualifies lads overseeing/checking their work. I'd be ****ed as a qualified spark if I'd be validating a load of basically unqualified work to the required standard.
Joiner number two today has been a lot better, he is getting 23/hr mind and using my labourer....
understand what you are saying if there are loads of unskilled guys basically working unsupervised, but how would you expect an apprentice to learn unless he/she was actually doing the work? one or two juniors with a fully qualified mentor would seem the way to do it, no?
wombat - Member
mitsumonkey - Member
A pound per brick!!!! I've now got this vision in my head of a wages clerk going round in his/her business suit counting the bricks laid in a wall
That's the QS does that, not the Wages Clerk
Everyone knows QS' can't count
You wanna try getting good labour on t'railway
Everyone knows QS' can't count
We can.
We just choose not to most of the time.....There's no profit in proper counting. 😉
Slight diversion, why is the UK obsessed with building with brick? Seems pretty inefficient to me.
There is a massive shortage of QS's at the moment.
According to the RICS it's easier to employ a ballet dancer than a QS at the moment.
Hmmm. What's the day rate in London at the mo? Toying of contracting for 5/6 months over the winter...
planners and their love of the vernacular have a lot to answer for.
Hmmm. What's the day rate in London at the mo?
Depends if you're doing the matinee as well as the evening performance.
Ah! I'm your man#conf t
#hostname do_I_get_the_jobwr mem
....how am I doing?
Ah, iOS jokes 🙂
Funny how all the threads here appear to be how loaded you could be with a trade, whilst during our hq build all the builders were convinced I was loaded because I worked in IT and did that 'book learnin'. Dad was a sparky and took me aside when I was 12 and said never, ever do this job.. though I'm not convinced he had it right now.
joiner number two today has been a lot better, he is getting 23/hr mind
He is getting or his agency is getting?
Dad was a sparky and took me aside when I was 12 and said never, ever do this job..
.....and he was right.
The problem with the construction industry is the boom / bust nature of it.
I get a dozen recruitment agency approaches a week at the moment. I could jump ship for an extra £5K tomorrow
Two years ago, it would have taken me months to find another job and i would have to have taken a £5K drop to do it.
A year from now?....Who knows?
[b]Murray - Member [/b]Slight diversion, why is the UK obsessed with building with brick? Seems pretty inefficient to me.
Brilliant question - honestly no idea, it is inefficient, very weather and skills dependent, not to mention old fashioned, and makes houses a lot more costly while trying to pass current SAP calculations and acheieve required 'U' values.
Even timber frame clad in brick - pointless in my view, why build a highly insulated, fast to erect, efficient, warm, wooden box then surround it with lumps of cooked clay. Planning needs to relax to move away from it really. Though, from a sustainability and maintenance perspective it is pretty good in terms of longevity.
Nope 23 quid direct to him. That's Derbyshire area. So basically 180/day give or take.
Tom_W1987 - Member
Hmmm.Maybe I should become a brickie instead of doing a masters.
If the goal of your masters is to earn £XXk a year, then yes a trade will get you there faster.
I know people who have multiple bachelor degrees and multiple masters (one person has two of both!) and struggle to earn £25k in a city that isn't London. They can't get interviews in roles in London.
I have one degree in an arts subject which I've managed to translate into working within a software engineering team and I earn great for my age vs my peers and the nation as a whole.
If I could do it all again, I would absolutely choose engineering. It seems so much more interesting than sitting at a desk all day.
But when I was 15/16 choosing ALevels and then 17 choosing my degree there was no exposure to apprenticeships, or how to get onto that path. I'm not surprised there is a shortage. It was all "go to Uni and do what interests you" - what interested me at the time was mainly having an easy ride and dicking about with computers (which I was good at both).
I'm doing alright, but I often wonder where I would be if I took my maths more seriously and figured out the engineering route. Would probably be posting on STW less.
I took Physics at A Level but dropped it because the tutor was an old Italian dude with a really thick accent and I couldn't understand a single word he was saying. True story.
"planners and their love of the vernacular have a lot to answer for."
No 🙂 House buyers/owners and their aversion to anything else !!
If I could do it all again, I would absolutely choose engineering. It seems so much more interesting than sitting at a desk all day.
There is plenty of sitting at desks in engineering, I can assure you! The designers at my place hardly ever get out, and if they do it's just client meetings.
I have worked up having completed trade training in the military from service engineer, to site engineer, to contracting and now consulting in engineering so I have a fairly broad view I would hope.
I would warn anyone that sees being a trade as an ideal job; it isn't! There is only so much of the "nicer" stuff about, and the rest (majority) is site work. Building sites are (even now) dangerous, pressurised environments with tight delivery dates and CM's pushing and pushing trades to finish ASAP. They aren't especially nice places to be. Even the senior trades get pretty rough treatment.
Being in construction/property is subject to the exact same commercial forces that everything else is, perhaps even more as almost all development is from investment (funds, pensions etc).
"planners and their love of the vernacular have a lot to answer for."
No House buyers/owners and their aversion to anything else !!
....or high street mortgage lenders and their reluctance to lend against anything other than "traditional" construction houses.?
Happily busy on tools at the moment. If I had to rely on agencies or trust a trader website rubbish I'd be looking for a new line of work.
This idea that all building trades are paid 50k per year is way out other than maybe the big cities ie London and its suburbs maybe 40 k in Edinburgh Glasgow but the rest North of York wont get anything near, maybe 25 if they're lucky
As for bricks or stone think of your heritage , asthetics etc do you want pressed coated steel sheeting or plywood with mesh and a 15mm harl. Im thinking acoustics as well
If I could do it all again, I would absolutely choose engineering. It seems so much more interesting than sitting at a desk all day.
I would say 90% of the time myself and all the other engineers I work with are trapped at our desks doing calculations or paperwork. The technicians build our prototypes following instructions we have to make for them and we rarely get to leave the building to see our work in action or to meet clients.
This does seem to be getting worse s they want to squeeze more of the higher end work out of each person and it makes less sense to allow a highly paid engineer to build a tool that a technician can do at a lower rate. Then they complain that the engineers have no experience in the actual assembly or real world side...
I would say 90% of the time myself and all the other engineers I work with are trapped at our desks doing calculations or paperwork.
Yeah, im aware of that, it was a brash generalisation on my part. My mate works for Esso and is always sending picture of huge turbines and shit, that stuff looks interesting.
But for the best part he is also at a desk typing away on a terrible Dell laptop. At least I get a MacBook Pro in software development 😆
Nope 23 quid direct to him. That's Derbyshire area. So basically 180/day give or take.
so take off 5 weeks holiday, a few days sick leave and some pension provision, that's roughly £30K a year (ie within 10% of UK average wage) - with limited job security. Sounds pretty fair, I'd say.
For years now politicians have led the 'got to go to uni' charge. Schools and universities are a marketing machine for degrees - and we just don't value our trades enough. I would be more than happy for my lads to pick up some tools...
I know I'm a bit late to the party, but this ^^^ time a million, and I speak from the point of view of an academic.
If my kids want to pursue an academic line because they truly love a particular subject, then I will be happy to support them, but I would still encourage them to pursue a trade of some sort.
olly2097 - Member
33. Worked as a nurse for 10 years. Carer since 18.I'd love a trade. Joiner, plumber, spark.
Can I get anyone to take on a punctual, mature, hardworking and sensible person like me? No. I need to be 16 so I can be paid £125 a week as an apprentice.
It's rubbish. I can't see a way into my desired careers, I'd willingly take a pay drop to learn but I do need a living wage.
Hell I can even plaster to a good finish and fitted my own kitchen, bathroom and windows with no real issues.
Oh well.
What you could do is stick an ad in your local paper saying that you assemble flat-pack furniture, put up curtain rails, that sort of thing. Start off doing the work evenings and weekends and if you're good the word will get around. At some point you'll have to branch out a bit, develop specialities and one day you'll be able to give up the day job.
My industry is fixated with parachuting graduates into project engineer roles. This results in lovely spread sheets and diagrams but woeful management out on the ground. They are cheap however! I've a very experienced colleague who time and again gets seconded to projects (he's too expensive to employ full time but the amount of money he saves from his years of experience would pay his wages 10x over) to sort out FUBAR's and he says he cringes at some of the meetings as it's painfully obvious the graduate is in way above their head. Some will listen to advice but others won't and then blame everyone else as the project falls behind or hits a hitch.
That or they are employed to depot manager positions where they have no/appalling man management skills and last months before being moved as the depot turns against them.
I've just had steel railings put in by a local blacksmith. Absolutely top notch work, he's trying to retire and can't as he is too busy, my wife (an engineer, resting) was building a retaining wall while he was here and he offered her a job - said he woudl train her up in blacksmithing as she is a hard worker. She's quite keen and I think it's a great idea. He was saying he's tried to get grads and apprentices but they generally (and this is his comment and opinion not mine) are lazy, demanding and expect everything on a plate with no commitment or input on their part. He seems quite sane and balanced as well.
Nope 23 quid direct to him. That's Derbyshire area. So basically 180/day give or take.so take off 5 weeks holiday, a few days sick leave and some pension provision, that's roughly £30K a year (ie within 10% of UK average wage) - with limited job security. Sounds pretty fair, I'd say.
This is the most sensible post of the day. It's hardly a pretty packet is it?
Last year I was in the position of recruiting 2 new multi skilled engineers & out of over 300 applications either via our company jobs web site & agency's I interviewed 6 as the majority just didn't have the skills at all!!
The youngest was 35 who we have taken on & he's doing OK the other lad was 44 and in some areas is superb but needed training in others.
The thing that swung it for both of them was the willing attitude to learn new stuff & not bluff about stuff they had a knowledge gap about.
The sticking point for many is that our job is 24/7 your on call to go in at the drop of a hat and if you don't get it sorted a lot of people will go short of a whole range of food.
We are paying £36,000 basic + overtime & you really struggle to get the right people. NW based too
so take off 5 weeks holiday, a few days sick leave and some pension provision, that's roughly £30K a year (ie within 10% of UK average wage) - with limited job security. Sounds pretty fair, I'd say
Err not really.
180x5x47 =42300
Plus with a decent accountant you won't be paying anywhere near the paye level of tax.
