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The Options For 2392 Courses Around The UK
By Jason Kendall | February 19, 2010
It’s notable that a career within the electrical industry, with its attractive options, remains a choice for lots of people. From here on we will use the phrase of Electrical Industry to explain the more accurate term of “Electro-Mechanical Engineering”. Furthermore, we will focus on the UK market and the domestic and commercial elements rather than those from elsewhere around the world. Because of the vast number of options available for a career within the electrical industry, we’ll start by concentrating on the main topics, and come back to the ‘add-ons’ later.
Really there are two main ways to enter 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. We have to reference individuals so we will plainly do so by ‘Junior’ and ‘Mature’ entrants.
People who do not want to pay any extra salaries, but want to enter the industry with the focus of being self employed are who we refer to as Mature Entrants. On the other hand, to gain further credentials and experience ‘Junior Entrants’ tend to work for a recognised electrical firm. During their first years in the working environment, a young apprentice, or junior entrant, will have a host of additional skills to learn.
The different ways into electrical work have two distinct types 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. ‘Junior Entrants’ will have to be in an apprenticeship of some sort in order to achieve the testing and course work required.
By opting to work on a freelance basis, many Mature Entrants appear to focus on those areas that provide profitable and practical solutions other than NVQ’s. For example by concentrating on those qualifications aimed at giving them the best return from their training costs. 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.
With regard to regular earning potential we have two clear paths – one for employees and the other for the self-employed. 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.
‘Junior Entrants’ can expect a basic salary of 12K at the beginning of their training. With application and experience this figure often more than doubles in time. Mature Entrants are more difficult to assess, and incomes up to and above 70k are regularly reported within the UK Press. However, it should be borne in mind that a self-employed person must meet their own costs for tools, clothes and vehicles (including insurance and petrol.) Furthermore, professional items such as accountancy, tax and insurance need to be considered to make the business work properly. In the UK there is a lot of work for electrical professions due to a short fall of current skilled people. In light of the above, a full seven day week is available to most people should they want it. To achieve the high salaries of 70+ thousand then you will need to put in very long hours and commit yourself fully.
There is often a considerable differential between the working expectations of Mature or Junior Entrants. For a ‘Junior Entrant’, most work is on a simple working week basis. That aside the Mature market is equally affected by when their clients are available – this is especially so within the domestic sector, where evening and weekend work predominates. This alters quite a bit, with lots of self employed electricians gaining much of their income from small office work, which is predominantly Monday to Friday 9am-5pm.
Once a Junior Entrant is employed within a company, then any follow-on knowledge they gain is often down to the employers’ activity as opposed to anything else. 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 area that is relatively new to the industry overall, yet requires new expertise is that of ‘Green Engineering’. The opportunity to provide both employment and potential service contracts, especially in the UK and the EEC sectors, mean that this area is of interest to both Junior and Mature electricians.
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