For many people, an interesting and varied choice often means a career within the electrical industry. Although often assigned to as ‘Electro-Mechanical Engineering”, we will simply refer to this as the Electrical Industry. As there are a wide variety of global standards, we will focus on those from the UK and in particular those relating to the domestic and commercial markets. 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.
The electrical market has in our opinion two methods of entry. Whilst many candidates opt to join later on in their life, there still exists the more traditional route of the apprenticeship. To clarify, we’ll label each of them as the ‘Mature Entrants’ and the ‘Junior 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. By contrast, Junior entrants would seek to work with an established electrical firm and build their skill-sets as they train. Upon leaving school many apprenticeships provide a fast learning curve for young adults looking to boost their auxiliary skills.
Clearly these two options have both differing training styles and methods of entry. The Junior Entrants syllabus involves NVQ/SVQ’s as well as proving working skills. The training itself is similar to non NVQ training, but completion of the full programme means getting the actual qualifications. This means that work programs or apprenticeships have to be sought in order to arrange the necessary course work and testing phases of work.
Mature Entrants do not appear to seek the NVQ element but instead they go after the most commercially suitable qualifications. i.e. Those certifications that will get them up and running with the best financial return from their training investment. This system does meet the purposes set out and therefore often provides a faster and more direct route into a trading position.
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. It is recognised that competence and qualifications add to income levels as well as experience and information gained.
Basic salary for Junior Entrants can start at around 12 thousand per annum, often going above 35 thousand after several years in industry. Mature Entrants are more difficult to assess, and incomes up to and above 70k are regularly reported within the UK Press. Regardless of all that is the need to cover off additional costs such as tools, clothes and even a vehicle and all that goes along with that. Earmarked within this is the need to cover additional expenses such as accountancy or insurance. In the UK there is a lot of work for electrical professions due to a short fall of current skilled people. Working 7 days a week is totally achievable for most people if they want it. It should be noted that figures of 70-100k p.a. advertised are not necessarily easy to come by and would require some long working hours to obtain them.
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. 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. 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 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. Within the domestic market this allows them to work under a range of headings without having to rely upon sub contract suppliers.
An area that is relatively new to the industry overall, yet requires new expertise is that of ‘Green Engineering’. The chance to win some big employment and business advantages within the governmental as well as the traditional growth sector means that this area could be attractive to both Junior and Mature Entrants alike.
Author: Scott Edwards. Check out CLICK HERE or Electrical Certificates.
Enjoyed this article?
WebsiteWordPress themes!