https://www.indeed.co.uk/jobs?q=bike+builder&l=wigan

In case anyone is looking for work in that area

£18K? Is it part time?

If getting paid is anything like getting them to deliver something then good luck!

£18K? Is it part time?

I thought £18k was a decent wage for what is essentially a fairly unskilled job that can be done with no qualifications and little experience and training. I must be out of touch with reality…

£18K for a 40 hour week, which is what the job advert states, is under NMW for a 25 year old…

Welcome to Wigan Doomanic.

Feel free to browse the many other well-paying jobs in the area.

£18K for a 40 hour week, which is what the job advert states, is under NMW for a 25 year old…

Only if they dont get any holiday entitlement , assuming they get the statutory holiday entitlement , its a little more than NMW.

Note : I am not an employment expert, but here’s my working:-

Yearly salary = £18000
Statutory minimum holiday entitlement = 5.6 weeks per year
Number of working weeks per year = 52 – 5.6 = 46.4
Number of hours worked in 46.4 weeks = 46.4 * 40 = 1856 hours
Hourly rate = £18000/1856 = £9.70 per hour compared to NMW ( for a 25 year old) = £8.72

I stand by my comment that it doesnt seem a bad salary for what the job is.

Note : I am not an employment expert,

Clearly not… 😂

Holiday is paid.

NMW is £8.72 per hour. A 40 hour week comes in at £18132 and a few pence.

Dunno about bike shop wages but that seems pretty normal for an entry level job, 1st line support stuff is similar money.

Some stw’ers really don’t live in the real world.

* enjoys day off from £8.72 p/h job*

that seems pretty normal for an entry level job,

That’s because of NMW. You would earn more, and have better future opportunities working at a supermarket. Plus you’d get discount on stuff that actually matters day to day when you’re earning **** all.

Some stw’ers really don’t live in the real world.

Absolutely.

It will be a good job for somebody with an interest in bikes and more interesting than being a security guard or pot washer. The pay is what it is, if it is too low, they wont get anybody apply or they wont keep people.

Maybe it’s my turn to be naive, but isn’t building bikes for mail order customers somewhat safety critical? Loads of people moan that the new bike they had delivered was thrown together by a drunken monkey and was unsafe to ride. Doesn’t sound like an entry level brain off job to me.

My last bike shop job was around 16k. As a grown man with rent and bills to pay it’s absolutely soul destroying.

Working flat out in a busy workshop. No weekends, no bank holidays and the owners expect servile gratitude for the opportunity to work for them. Then they wonder why people vanish at the first sniff of a pay rise.

I thought £18k was a decent wage for what is essentially a fairly unskilled job that can be done with no qualifications and little experience and training

Yeah you can just walk in off the street and start hammering bikes together with the forks on backwards.

The assumption that NMW jobs are ‘brain off anyone can do them’ type jobs really pisses me off. I’d love to see how many of those on here in the higher rate tax bracket could be a carer in a nursing home, a health care assistant in a hospital, a cleaner, a gardener etc etc. I’ve not read the job details above but you’ll probably need some sort of cytech qualification. These jobs require knowledge, formal training, qualifications, experience and yes, all for £8.72 (or less depending on age) per hour. You simply can’t walk straight in to them (well, not for a decent employer!)

Is a cytech qualification only worth £300 a week.

There’s a lot of people on this thread predictably revealing their nasty side. Disappointing.

Blah blah, I wouldn’t get out of bed for etc ,blah blah

Heres the job spec – they dont specify the need any formal qualifications. They do say they want technically minded individuals – which sounds fair enough to me. Note they’re not asking for a cycle mechanic, they’re just asking for someone to assemble bikes.

Building bikes from parts is not rocket science, and the reason why I said the salary looks ok to me was that compared to other NMW jobs like the ones you mentioned above , this one looks fairly straightforward . I’d rather do this than the other jobs cited above given a similar end salary .

As someone else said above – if the salary is too low, they wont get any applicants or they wont be able to retain people.

We are currently looking for a Bicycle builder to join our busy workshop in Wigan.

We want hands-on, technically minded individuals who understand the importance of taking care of our customers.

Previous experience in a professional workshop or a knowledge of bike mechanics would be great although not essential as training will be provided. you should have an interest in bicycles.

You will be expected to complete the following task on a typical work day:

· Assembling mail order bikes, inspecting and setting up the bike, and packing the bike up to be shipped. Before delivering bikes to our customers, we conduct a thorough set of safety checks to ensure each item leaves the shop in excellent condition.

· Maintaining a clean and tidy workshop

· Working efficiently, ensuring the bikes are built in a timely manner

Job Types: Temporary, Permanent

Salary: £18,000.00 per year

Schedule:

8 hour shift
Day shift
Monday to Friday
Weekends
Work remotely:

No

The assumption that NMW jobs are ‘brain off anyone can do them’ type jobs really pisses me off.

Same here and it seems to be the prevalent opinion, not just on STW.

I’m sure one of our unskilled flamboyant friends from the entertainment industry will snap it up

a carer in a nursing home, a health care assistant in a hospital,

These, and many others, are grossly underpaid and underappreciated.

It can still be an entry level job without being unskilled or brain off. Especially if there is somebody more senior looking after them and giving the bike a quick once over before it goes out the door. They can also be trained up to do more and start helping with bike repairs or shop floor stuff.

There is a very busy local tyre place near me who hire young blokes as they are fit, strong and cheap. The young guys do the heavy lifting and hard graft, the senior guys do the more complex stuff and the boss checks the wheel nuts are torqued up himself before you get your keys back.

I used to assemble 6000A switch gear for similar money. Assembly is just a matter of following the instructions. There’s a part of me would love to go back to that type of work and ditch the corporate BS.

Something for everyone, maybe

https://sportscotland.org.uk/jobs/vacancies/director-of-operations-2023-cycling-world-championships/

https://www.bikebiz.com/jobs/

https://www.britishcycling.org.uk/scotland/article/scst-scottish-cycling-about-Job-Vacancies

https://app.vacancy-filler.co.uk/salescrm/Careers/CareersPage.aspx?e=LMo8nnTwYNakqg7S_1pe4vYe2tJFZF6oKQGAWMwOPP8h4leqxGer2OKUZTizJ3rK6LdJbqDSOac&iFrame=true&PageSize=5

https://www.raleigh.co.uk/gb/en/about-us/vacancies/

https://www.specialized.com/gb/en/careers

https://jobs.jobvite.com/trek-bicycle/

https://brompton.recruitee.com/

https://www.bikeparkwales.com/we-are-hiring-customer-service-team-member-casual

https://playsportsnetwork.com/job/gmbn-tech-presenter/

I’d have no worries about doing that job for minimum wage.
If I work out how many hours I actualy work unpaid over my contacted hours I’m not that far off per hour.
Just because I have no real formal qualifications doesn’t mean I’m thick…

I’d rather be building bikes than working somewhere every other **** will stab you in the back to climb the ladder.

https://mpora.com/mountainbiking/11-mountain-biking-jobs-anybody-shit-turn-pro/

https://apply.workable.com/futureplc/j/F471A14277/

https://playsportsnetwork.com/jobs/

https://career.canyon.com/Jobs/All?lang=eng

ooh ooh, I’m an unskilled ‘entertainment industry’ dosser now. Maybe I should apply? Could then be able to decide on my future career between this and the van driving job I’ve applied for. I wonder if people would be less embarassed on my behalf if I was working with bikes rather than delivering food?

My missus just got made redundant from a Management Accountant role and had to take a 9k pay cut. She’s gone into landscape gardening and maintenance working for an old colleague of mine.

She’s loving it too! We worked out the finances and we can just afford it. To be honest it’s quite embarrassing and sobering to see how much money we’ve just wasted over the years!

Once I’m done paying for past financial errors in 2 years or so, I’d jump at a chance for a job like this.

I’ll have to take a pay cut, but I’m not bothered about nice cars, clothes and holidays. I like biking, eating the odd takeaway and gaming on my PC. If I can afford all that, then it’ll do me 🙂

Guess I’ll have to stop buying bikes every nine months* (*after my next one).

Ive worked for less. Good luck to anyone looking for a new job.

One way to spoil a hobby

The assumption that NMW jobs are ‘brain off anyone can do them’ type jobs really pisses me off.

Another one here who hates the assumption. It may be true for the menial factory jobs where you do the same movement hundreds of times an hour but an awful lot of the minimum wage work is A: hard and B: requires a decent level of skill and intelligence.

As for the wage for just building bikes, that’s standard for it to be minimum wage level. The job is not held in a high regard by the general public so they won’t pay for the build time. hence it has to be done with the cost coming out of the price the bike sold for. Same for a bike mechanic, it’s only a bike so why should it cost a similar hourly rate to the local car mechanic, they’re much more complicated.

I started a thread a few weeks back about going back to the bike trade and the wages was the defining barrier for me, more than my fear of making my hobby my job ruining it for me. I may still follow up on it though, do my Cytech Level 1+2 for example, as it’s far more appealing to me than working in the local Aldi who pay more (£9.20 start rate) as sometimes it’s not all about the money.

A lot of people need to remember that without these people doing these jobs that pay just the legal minimum the country would grind to a halt.

Planet X recruiting as well, even a role for an “apprentice”

NMW: ‘we’d like to pay you less but we’re not allowed to.’

If you want to get into bike biz with no qualifications and make much more even in COVID times:

Setup a hand bike wash near trails or where roadies meet / end up.

Went to chat to guys near me out of interest. They are charging £20 a scrub for roadies with all the gear, no idea. Especially in an area with flats / no gardens…

I’ve assembled bikes for mail order. It was anything from £300 models upwards. Sometimes they go together with minimum fuss. Other times you can spend plenty of time trying to get them to work properly. Remember, it’s your signature on the PDI form so if anything goes wrong it’s your fault. That crappy V-brake has to be right when it leaves the workshop, no matter how much of a pain in the bum it is to set up. It’s not always a case of “following the instructions”. A decent level of mechanical know-how and skill can come in very useful.

I’m a time served fabricator, with more than 20 years experience. I was made redundant due to Covid from a fabricator/supervisor role in motorsport. The first fabrication role offered me a starting rate of £9.50ph. I had chance of a trial at another place welding gas/nuclear parts, that would of been in the region of £25k. Luckily I found employment in a different sector with a better package.

Guess what I’m saying is even with qualifications and experience certain sectors just don’t pay that well.

When I was young and single and Tony Blair ran this country, I worked a bit more than minimum wage and could afford my own place, went out every weekend, could pay all my bills on time, had an ISA paying 4% interest and a decent bike too. Absolutely impossible these days, house prices, rent, energy bills and bike prices have sky rocketed while mininum wage is crawling uphill over broken glass. Would not wanna be a 20yo these days.