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Step-By-Step Electrical Colleges
By Jason Kendall | February 12, 2010
For many people, a career within the electrical industry remains an interesting and varied choice. Whilst the original term is ‘Electro-Mechanical Engineering’ we will simply refer to the subject as the Electrical Industry. 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.
On consideration, we observe two forms of access 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.
Mature students, or entrants, often train so that they can become self-employed and work on their own projects without having to pay wages to external electricians. Those who join as Junior Entrants, on the other hand, appear to do so with the aim of joining an established electrical firm – in order to gain further qualifications and experience whilst picking up practical and other work-place 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.
Clearly these two options have both differing training styles and methods of entry. In essence, the Junior Entrants follow an NVQ syllabus, or SVQ syllabus in Scotland. There is a particular requirement to attain the NVQ qualifications as part of the overall program. 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.) i.e. Those certifications that will get them up and running with the best financial return from their training investment. 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.
Salaries are often simply broken down to those that relate to self -employed people and those in general 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. Salary options are often affected both by the know- how and the knack for doing things as well as any perceived formal levels of understanding.
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. 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. They will also have to make allocations for personal or professional insurance and accountancy. That aside, whilst the work is open to market-forces to some degree, the current skills shortage in the UK means that there’s a high work-load available. Certainly, working a full week is a realistic possibility for those who want to. It should be understood that the 70-100k figures that we see thrown around in newspapers are not easily achieved, and would either require working long hours or having assistants (or both.)
For the most part there is a strong difference between the Junior and Mature Entrants’ working week. ‘Junior Entrants’ would normally be required to work Monday-Friday 9am-5pm. While on the other hand, the opportunities in the domestic market (where mature entrants often work) can be heavily dependent upon when the clients get home. Again, this varies considerably, and many self-employed electricians make the mainstay of their income from office and small business installation, testing and inspection, which is Mon-Fri 9-5pm.
Any specialist knowledge the Junior Entrant gains whilst in someone’s employ is usually down to the sectors of industry that company works in. Whereas the mature entrant can gain knowledge from any trade source – even one outside of the core of electrical work. 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. With expected growth through new employment contracts and business options, this new entity is extremely attractive to many Junior and Mature Electricians, especially when considering the UK and EEC support overall.
(C) 2009 S. Edwards. Visit www.AdultRetrainingCourses.co.uk/kadreco.html or 2391 Courses.
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