Insights On An Electrical Course

For many people, an interesting and varied choice often means a career within the electrical industry. Often (and more correctly) referred to as ‘Electro-Mechanical Engineering’, we’ll simply refer to it as the Electrical Industry for the sake of simplicity here. In addition, we will stay with the UK market and especially items relating to the domestic and commercial sectors rather than global issues. We will begin by reviewing the main issues first and come back to the ‘add-ons’ later, because of the huge number of options available as a career within this subject.

Basically there are two clear ways to gain admission into the electrical market. Along with apprenticeships for school leavers, students entering the field at a later phase in their life now have an alternative to more traditional amateur routes. Throughout this document we will simply refer to two types of people the ‘Junior’ and the ‘Mature’ entrants.

Primarily, those who join the industry later on, (the Mature Entrants,) generally do so with the aim of becoming self-employed at some point, or to work on their own building projects etc. without having to pay wages to external electricians. However, people who join as junior entrants like the fact that they can join a recognised firm to pick up the bulk of their practical and work based skills. To be fair, young apprentices leaving school will have a lot of supplementary skills to learn during their early years as a working adult.

The distinct types of entry have differing styles of training – The Junior Entrants syllabus involves NVQ/SVQ’s as well as proving working skills. As part of the training program an NVQ would be a requirement to attain. This requires being in a directly-related work program or apprenticeship of some type, so as to meet the testing and course-work requirements.

Mature Entrants, with the possible aim of entering the market from a self-employed perspective, seem to focus on attaining the most commercially viable qualifications (without the need for the NVQ element.) Having said that, the mature student does aim to gain the necessary skills to do the job, whilst at the same time reducing their training costs at all times. This method allows for a quicker route to the market and does meet the necessary trading elements for the areas concerned despite reducing the overall qualification set.

So we have two defined routes laid out – one being for general employment and the other centred on self-employment. The question remains as to how much work per week a self-employed person puts in – for the sake of this review we assume that it is full time. Certainly, whilst salary levels can be affected by knowledge and qualifications, they can also be affected by competence and aptitude.

The basic salary for Junior Entrants tends to start around the 12-15k mark, but rises regularly to around 30k with the right level of experience. However, with incomes of 70,000 or more a year, a ‘Mature Entrants’ salary can often be more difficult to judge. Often costs such as tools, clothes and even transport need to be assessed and included in the business mix overall. Furthermore, professional items such as accountancy, tax and insurance need to be considered to make the business work properly. Aside from that, the current skills shortage within the UK still means that there’s lots of high value work out there. Working 7 days a week is totally achievable for most people if they want it. To be fair, high salaries bounded about by the press do require long working hours or help to achieve them.

It should be noted that the working week for most electricians differs between the Junior and Mature Entrant markets. Most of the work for Junior Entrant electricians will be on a simple 9-5, Monday to Friday basis. 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. Although by testing and installing various business systems, many self-employed electricians manage to work during a normal working week.

Once a career in electrical work has been chosen, a Junior Electrician is often at the mercy of their employer when it comes to learning new skills and expertise. Alternatively, the mature entrant can gain other training outside of their chosen field, such as gas and plumbing work. They can take on larger jobs and do all the work themselves then – which is a particularly great benefit to domestic clients.

An up to the minute angle – involving a new level of skills – is that of the so called ‘Green Engineer’. 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.

(C) 2009 Scott Edwards. Go to City and Guilds Electrical Courses or Electrical Courses.