The pandemic has of course been hard on the electrical trade, but the beauty of this vocation is that once you’re in it, you have a job for life, equipping those trained with highly transferable skills, opportunities to go self-employed, or expand into specialist areas such as smart homes and renewables. The scope is absolutely enormous.
In this episode, we discuss the ‘right’ routes into the industry, with insight on avoiding those dodgy online companies that – for a nominal fee – will claim to have you fully qualified and raring to go in a matter of weeks.
Unfortunately, that just isn’t the case, and these companies are more than happy to take your money, in exchange for a “qualification” that isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.
Here at Electrical Review, we aren’t big on scamming the young people we need to sustain our future, so we explore the humble apprenticeship, the unsung hero of the electrical industry.
Right now, we are facing a global shortage of skilled electricians. Here in the UK, half the country is currently experiencing a shortfall of more than 50, particularly in the south east. But, as the world opens up again once more (for the time being anyway) the employment of electricians is projected to grow 8% from now until 2029 – far faster than that of most other occupations.
The good news? This demand for qualified and competent electricians means a potential spike in earnings, as these skills are (and will continue to be) so highly sought after.
We dive into how to get involved, and touch upon the recent changes to NICEIC regulations that stipulate which qualifications are now accepted should you wish to register; changes that for some reason never seemed to make it into the public sphere, or to the majority of training providers for that matter.
In this episode, we are also joined by this year’s winner of the Screwfix Trade Apprentice Competition, 21-year-old Kaiden Ashun, who, from his work van no less, will be filling us in on what his apprenticeship involved (they are a lot more in depth than you might think – gone are the days of passing your Journeyman a screwdriver), why he’d recommend them to others and what it was like to bring home the gold (quite literally, he won £10,000 worth of stuff.)
As always, you can get in touch with any questions, feedback or suggestions for future discussion via our dedicated podcast email [email protected]. We hope you enjoy the episode!