Are Electricians Being De-Valued?

[PGTips]

Sausage, if these people are not qualified to carry out thework then they shouldn't be doing it, simple as that. These people are takingthe food out of Electricians mouths all over the UK.
I don't know about your back ground in the electricalindustry but I did a five year JIB apprenticeship. I gained my paper andpractical qualifications up to Technician including my AM1 and AM2 and I’mregistered with the JIB. This took me a number of years of study and exams, anda lot of my personal time to pass these necessary exams and practicalqualifications to boot.
So how is it right that a labourer who brushes up against anElectrician in the pub can get on to a building site 1st and 2nd fix electricalsystems with no paper qualifications, on the proviso that a qualifiedInspection and tester certifies it all? With respect that is just madness.
I could teach a sibling how to terminate a socket, light, 3phase distribution board, a mechanised process etc etc etc. The point is thatthe person I was showing wouldn't understand why they were doing it andwouldn't officially be allowed to carry this work out unsupervised, but thistype of person is being left to their own devices on construction sites andcarrying out a qualified man’s work.
This attitude towards the electrical industry is what iskilling the trade, and skilled men’s jobs. Imagine if you could leave schoolthick as two short planks and then walk straight in to this industry with noregulation as an Electricians Mate, then start installing electrical systems onprice.
Very scary, but that is what's happening all over the UK.The dumbing down of a very dangerous and skilled industry and the allowing ofmorons to carry out works within this industry at the cost of qualified skilledmen.
Perhaps these Electricians Mates should be thrown in at thedeep end and left to their own devices on let’s say 11KV, and then there wouldbe a lot less of them.
Apologies for thefirst posting regarding this issue you raised about the grammar etc. I wrote itin word with paragraphs etc. Copied it and pasted it to the reply box and itdid what it did to the text, don't ask me why but there you go. Hope this one isn'tas hard for you to read.

 

[PGTips]

Its gone and done it again. What is it with this site and copying and pasting from Word? Sorry everyone.

 

[Guitarist]

Unfortunately, while other trades just choose to see that we "throw in a few wires", they will assume that it's all easy work that anyone can do.
It's actually part P which is keeping a lot of us going, as many trades think they can do the job, but realise that it will have to be signed off and notified.

 

[Sausage]

the situation you describe above where people thick as planks with no qualifications installing on price is something i have experienced first hand. I'm not saying i endorse it! I chose to go to college, get my 2330 levels 2 and 3, AM2, NVQ 3 and 17th edition. I wanted to do it properly and my ticket means I can go wherever I want and get paid the rate.

Although I have worked with these chancers, the only thing I'll say, is that they are trapped in the company that gives them this price work, and we all know who's pockets are getting lined!

 

[shagbite]

Unfortunately, while other trades just choose to see that we "throw in a few wires", they will assume that it's all easy work that anyone can do.
It's actually part P which is keeping a lot of us going, as many trades think they can do the job, but realise that it will have to be signed off and notified.

customers don't want to pay us what we're worth because at the end of a job, all they see is a 40 bob socket and a pendant drop. but they'll pay a mechanic 50 quid an hour, no problem. my mechanic wanted to charge me £200 to replace the osr caliper (mot failure). i sourced the part myself, for £43 + vat, and had it swapped over in 35 minutes. it's crazy.

while we're at it, i know a bloke who paid £800 to a roofer, to take down a chimney stack. it took the roofer, and his labourer, 6 and a half hours to complete this job. now, if we assume that the scaffolding cost a couple of hundred quid and the labourer £100 (it was a saturday), this fellas raked in 500 notes for just over half a day's graft - and it was cash in hand! i'm in the wrong job.

 

[Guitarist]

customers don't want to pay us what we're worth because at the end of a job, all they see is a 40 bob socket and a pendant drop. but they'll pay a mechanic 50 quid an hour, no problem. my mechanic wanted to charge me £200 to replace the osr caliper (mot failure). i sourced the part myself, for £43 + vat, and had it swapped over in 35 minutes. it's crazy.

while we're at it, i know a bloke who paid £800 to a roofer, to take down a chimney stack. it took the roofer, and his labourer, 6 and a half hours to complete this job. now, if we assume that the scaffolding cost a couple of hundred quid and the labourer £100 (it was a saturday), this fellas raked in 500 notes for just over half a day's graft - and it was cash in hand! i'm in the wrong job.

You can also say this about many plumbers who get called out. I constantly get told stories by my customers who have paid hundreds out for an hours work (plus materials) to replace a ballcock or fix a leak.
The best one I heard was someone who had a header tank replaced on a Sunday. Took the plumber about half the day (including a trip to a certain DIY store) and the bill was £1.5k !!!

 

[whitestu]

You can also say this about many plumbers who get called out. I constantly get told stories by my customers who have paid hundreds out for an hours work (plus materials) to replace a ballcock or fix a leak.
The best one I heard was someone who had a header tank replaced on a Sunday. Took the plumber about half the day (including a trip to a certain DIY store) and the bill was £1.5k !!!

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So why aren't there loads of people competing for this type of work thus driving the price down. It doesn't make any sense.

 

[Guitarist]

So why aren't there loads of people competing for this type of work thus driving the price down. It doesn't make any sense.

Basically, people panick and get the first plumber out who can sort their problem. It's only once they get the bill that their eyes pop out. Also, every plumber I've spoken to in my area is booked up for at least 8 weeks.
I definitely chose the wrong profession...

 

[imago]

customers don't want to pay us what we're worth because at the end of a job, all they see is a 40 bob socket and a pendant drop. but they'll pay a mechanic 50 quid an hour, no problem. my mechanic wanted to charge me £200 to replace the osr caliper (mot failure). i sourced the part myself, for £43 + vat, and had it swapped over in 35 minutes. it's crazy.

while we're at it, i know a bloke who paid £800 to a roofer, to take down a chimney stack. it took the roofer, and his labourer, 6 and a half hours to complete this job. now, if we assume that the scaffolding cost a couple of hundred quid and the labourer £100 (it was a saturday), this fellas raked in 500 notes for just over half a day's graft - and it was cash in hand! i'm in the wrong job.

The thing is, by making assumptions like that you're doing the same thing as the people complaining about electrician's rates. So lets look at the roofer's costs for that half day. Scaffolding the front of a house, @£300:00, a skip £120:00 because all waste has to be carried by a licensed carrier, the labourer more like £80:00 to be honest. So that's £400:00. Out of the remaining £400:00 he has to pay public liability which is almost double the usual because he's working above the roof line, tools like ladders have to be commercial grade, running a van, materials to cap the hole where the stack was. Then account for him loosing half his weekend.

Bitching between the trades is OK as a bit of banter, but when the green eye comes into play no one wins.

 

[Guitarist]

The thing is, by making assumptions like that you're doing the same thing as the people complaining about electrician's rates. So lets look at the roofer's costs for that half day. Scaffolding the front of a house, @£300:00, a skip £120:00 because all waste has to be carried by a licensed carrier, the labourer more like £80:00 to be honest. So that's £400:00. Out of the remaining £400:00 he has to pay public liability which is almost double the usual because he's working above the roof line, tools like ladders have to be commercial grade, running a van, materials to cap the hole where the stack was. Then account for him loosing half his weekend.

Bitching between the trades is OK as a bit of banter, but when the green eye comes into play no one wins.

Unless he's one of those guys who works off a ladder. We can't assume anything, good or bad

 

[imago]

Unless he's one of those guys who works off a ladder. We can't assume anything, good or bad

If he can take down a chimney stack from a ladder then he deserves a lot more than £800:00!

 

[shagbite]

The thing is, by making assumptions like that you're doing the same thing as the people complaining about electrician's rates. So lets look at the roofer's costs for that half day. Scaffolding the front of a house, @£300:00, a skip £120:00 because all waste has to be carried by a licensed carrier, the labourer more like £80:00 to be honest. So that's £400:00. Out of the remaining £400:00 he has to pay public liability which is almost double the usual because he's working above the roof line, tools like ladders have to be commercial grade, running a van, materials to cap the hole where the stack was. Then account for him loosing half his weekend.

Bitching between the trades is OK as a bit of banter, but when the green eye comes into play no one wins.

why criticise me for making assumptions on the scaffold and the labourer's wage, and then go and make your own assumptions? you also assume that there was a skip, when there wasn't. this is because the chimney was lovely old york stone, which the customer (a relative of mine) wanted to keep. i don't know about his public liability costs, but if they're double what i pay, then he'll be forking out about £130 a year. this equates to about 30 odd pence a day. even if it were five times my assumption, that's still less than £1.80 a day. you'll have to forgive me, but i'm going to make a couple more assumptions, based on the info' you've put in your reply - i'm guessing £20 for diesel and £30 for materials. factor in these expenses and the fella's walking away with over £56 an hour - in his hand. i'm all for someone making good money, but this bloke's on over £100 an hour. and before you say anything, i realise not all his jobs will pay this well. problem is, my relatives employed the first bloke that rocked up on their doorstep. i know loads of builders and roofers and i know, if they'd asked me, i could have got it done for half what they paid. you're right about the banter, i'm all for it. trouble is, you're also right about the envy - the most i've ever been paid for working a saturday is £38 an hour - before tax.

 

[imago]

I didn't citicise you for making assumptions, I was pointing out that there's no difference between you doing it and anyone else. Equally saying that you could have got the job done for much less so can anyone who knows a cheaper electrician.

In my opinion, and it's just that, and opinion, there's no problem with someone charging a higher rate for a job than it could be done for elsewhere. People can get quotes and compare them, or just go with whoever gives them the first price. It's their choice and if they don't want to, can't be bothered to, don't know how to, check out prices then they can pay the agreed price.

There is a problem with poor quality materials and bad workmanship. I have customers who don't get quotes from anyone, me included, they just ask for whatever to be done. I don't doubt for a minute that there are cheaper sparks available, but they don't look for them. Why? Because either they, or someone they know has had a bad experience in the past.

Again, I'm not having a go at you, just using the example you've given when I say that you aren't happy with what he charged but don't say he did a bad job. If he did a good job, and they were happy to pay for it, where's the problem?

 

[shagbite]

i guess the problem lies with the perceived injustice that arises when hourly rates are compared between trades. i'm lucky if i get £13 an hour these days, and i've got qualifications coming out of my eyeballs. call it jealousy, call it envy, but ultimately, it comes down to fairness. as electricians we have, arguably, the most responsibility on site, yet we're gradually becoming the least paid. with regards to the roofer; i guess his workmanship was acceptable but he left a hell of a mess when he'd left.

can i just say aswell, that i understand where you're coming from when you imply that it's hypocritical to whinge about other trade's rates and then, castigate our own customers for trying to get us as cheap as possible. but do you honestly believe that we get what we deserve - in comparison to other trades? somehow, our trade has gone from being a respectable, well paid job into an average paid job that everyone thinks they can do when they get in from work. after all, it's only 3 wires.

 

[imago]

I've no arguement with what you and others are saying about electrcian's rates, I agree completely. Rather than the other trades being paid too much, I think we should be concentrating on getting paid more. I never sell my services or promote my business based on price. I also never negotiate when I get the "Can you do it a bit cheaper?" question.

If we (electricians) look at the businesses and products which cost most they are all sold either on quality or exclusivity. Cars, computers, white goods, houses, groceries etc etc there are plenty of examples of items within a competative market which do the same things as their counterparts, but they are either marketed better, or are of a higher quality. The most recognised brand name in the world is Coke, yet there are plenty of equally refressing colas available. Why do they sell so much? Jaguar/Land Rover was on it's arse a few years back, then it made a recovery, not by making them cheaper, they actually increased the prices along with sorting out quality issues which didn't come anywhere near justifying the price increase. On and on the list goes.

The answer IMHO is to get the representative bodies to start banging the electrian's drum. ECA, ELECSA, NAPIT, NIC, JIB etc etc. Once the public's perception is changed to reflect the standards and training required to do the job properly people will accept the higher charges. I don't like marketing BS, but electrical work isn't 'sexy' enough. A guy I did a job for recently happily spent far more for his granite worktop than he did on the rewire, and he didn't bat an eyelid.

The electrical industry sat on it's collective behind and let other trades raise their profiles without challenge. Until it collectively realises that the time has come to play catch up it will be up to individual businesses and electricians to market themselves as best they can.

If brickies were on a grand a day electricians and plumbers would be perfectly happy. As long as they were on two.

 

[Welchyboy]

I cant beleive how long this has been goin on for

The bottom line is if your working on a wage for someone else you'll NEVER earn more than an average wage and will allways be at the mercy of supply and demand factors, and right now your up poo creek as demand is low and supply is high, that's the trade off that allows you to go home at 5 o'clock every night and completely forget about work till the next day
if you own your own business or work for your self then it's down to YOU how much money you can make depending on how you operate your business, how good you are, how shrewd you are and how much hard work you put in,

it just drains me when so many 'sparks' think that just because they done a few years at college it gives them a life long right to earn loads a cash, sorry the world dont work like that!


I don't think electricians are any more de-valued than anyone else,

And in a way things have not looked better for anybody skilled with electrics

But it seems It's allways someone else's fault, the poles, the economy, 5week
*wonders etc etc etc yawn!!!!

 

[shagbite]

you can't believe how long this has been going on for, yet here you are, adding to it.

 

[Guitarist]

Have to agree, you'll never make a great living by working for someone else.

 

[vjsmarwick]

The moment they start 6 week crash courses and handing out sparky tickets to labourers that have never done an once of training then our once great trade is doomed I don't know everything far from it.
I have been reading some of the questions asked on the site and I wonder if some even know the basics and can they read a wiring diagram.
I am first to admit when it comes to electronics I am lost but I recon I could wire almost anything armed with the drawing.
Common sense is a great thing and I know it's better to ask if your not sure but come on guys are we giving advice to fellow sparks or to the DIY guys we all curse for ? It's a pity there is no way we could confirm members at least have some qualifications.

 

[Guitarist]

It's normally easy to tell the DIY questions from the electricians. Personally, I have no problem giving certain advice to DIY'ers, but I draw the line when it is obvious that they are putting themselves and others at risk.