Thinking of training to be a sparky, please post your thoughts

[yorksparky]

Hi. I am considering working towards becoming a qualified electrician. I plan to take the 17th edition course, a place near me do a 3 day course for £540. And then look for somewhere that will take me on as a trainee. What advice do people have? is the 17th edition a good place to start? I have GCSEs, 3 A levels, currently doing a university course that I dont enjoy and will probably drop out of. I have no electrical qualifications yet. Please share your thoughts!

Thanks,

yorksparky

 

[trev]

Yorksparky, you've obviously got a brain. It's sometimes a bit difficult to advise guys like you without coming across as holier than thou.

If you really have your mind set on this then go for it. The caveat is though, things are bloody tough now in electric land and are probably going to get tougher in the short term.

Best advice is take no damn notice at all of the ads that you see which say "Give us many thousands of pounds and you, yes you, can be an electrician in a few weeks" Go down to your local college and ask them how to go about getting on to City & Guilds 2330. It'll take you a lot longer and the studying will be harder but you'll be better off in the long run

Good luck mate

 

[Dave 85]

Generally you have to take other courses before you take 17th edition.
What are your mid-long term plans? Go self employed or work for a company?

Either way, deciding to become a sparky these days does not magically put 30-40k a year on your plate. There are thousands of 'all training and no experience sparkies out there and noone wants em'
Personally Ive always said, if I were gonna take someone on to work for me, the ideal guy would have been a domestic electricians mate for a few years with NO qualifications. Quals are just gonna mean I have to pay him more.

My most important bit of advice is this: Find out weather you will have work to walk into before spending time and money on training. Dont just expect to do a few weeks/months/years at college and have everyone throw money at you, it wont happen.
I had 2 freinds who were willing to use me as a mate on a casual basis lined up before I decided to become a sparky.
I know plenty of people who have spent hundreds/thousands on training and ended up doing completely unrelated jobs.

 

[yorksparky]

Thanks for your input. The 17th edition was suggested by a company near me. I plan to focus on getting experience over qualifications, I have done plugs and lighting for a garage and also finished a loft conversion wiring for a friend when their electrician became ill and could not finish it. Mid to long term plans are to get a steady income from a company, and only consider working for myself if it seems like a good idea. Long term I actually want to buy a house, renovate and sell, Im from a big DIY family and currently saving up a (small so far!) deposit for the future so I might have a half reasonable deposit when Im ready to buy in maybe 10 years time or so. Will many places be interested if I have no electrical qualifications at all? I was under the impression I would need something to start with in terms of qualifications.

 

[Dave 85]

Its catch 22 mate. Unless you work for free or know a sparky who'll take you, you cant get experience without qualifications. But having qualifications only slightly increases your chances of getting a job that will give you good experience.
And by the way
They're SOCKETS NOT PLUGS!!!!!!! aaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrgggh!!

Sorry ...pet hate
One of these days a client of mine is gonna come home and find a load of live 13amp plug tops hanging off their walls in the places they asked me to put effing 'plugs'

Its like calling a girls **** a cock....

 

[Des 56]

If you have had enough,drop out of the course you are now on, after you have secured an electrical course at your local college,it will be far more effective than someone robbing you of lots of money with promises of milk and honey that will not materialise

 

[Knobhead]

What are you doing at university?
Will it be of any help in what you want to do?
If not why do you want to change to something alien to what you’ve studied?

Wiring a light or a “plug” as you put it, may have been fun at the time. Did you see the work that went in to getting the cables in place?

Think long and hard before chucking a university place out the window. Also think of who you’ve deigned a place to in higher education.


Signed,
Disgusted of Nottingham.

 

[Knobhead]

*******

 

[Adam W]

Yeah but Tony a degree is "better" than a City & Guilds level 3, ergo a degree is all-encompassing - do part of a degree in something and you're already part way to becoming an electrician, plumber, gas man, carpenter, mechanic, farmer or whatever.

It doesn't work the other way around because you need to know how to put on a tie, which is module 1 of the rocket science degree, or any other degree for that matter. Not NVQ though. No way.

 

[sedgy34]

Yorksparky, you've obviously got a brain. It's sometimes a bit difficult to advise guys like you without coming across as holier than thou.

If you really have your mind set on this then go for it. The caveat is though, things are bloody tough now in electric land and are probably going to get tougher in the short term.

Best advice is take no damn notice at all of the ads that you see which say "Give us many thousands of pounds and you, yes you, can be an electrician in a few weeks" Go down to your local college and ask them how to go about getting on to City & Guilds 2330. It'll take you a lot longer and the studying will be harder but you'll be better off in the long run

Good luck mate

AGREED!!!! BUT what you dropping out of that could get more interesting and earn you loads of dosh in the long run?
(sparky work is tough and if you have an off day your held responsible and locked up lol)

 

[JD6400]

Your best bet is to get a day or two with a electrician ( for free ) and see if this is the job for you , as you may find that you have a more rose tinted view of the job than you first thought !
If it is still the way you want to go then i suggest you first get yourself a job in the industry while you carry on your course , and only then drop out of it to pursue the 2330 .
That way you have not chucked in a opportunity to gain a degree for possibly """" all !
As for getting these micky mouse (half day or the like) qualifications you can keep them !

As i stated last week on a thread , i have never been asked for a job by anyone who has taken one of these courses , but i think if i was given the choice between a man straight off the street with no experience but willing to go on a proper learning based course and one that already had these scraps of paper and no experience , i would only be looking at the one that will be learning the correct way and building their knowledge and experience hand in hand !

This is obviously only my personal view , but as some one that has given between 20 - 30 or more a start or leg up in the industry i do speak from experience !

Remember experience can not be brought and is the only true qualification that can be relied on in the end !

 

[Mr.Ian]

A lot of people think electricians work is fitting new sockets / light fittings and terminating new cables into new terminals. Before that though cables need running / joists need drilling (in correct places) to do that the floor boards need lifting and before that floor covering needs removing and all with minimal damage, plus chase in walls to run cables and if you're lucky you can come up to the socket, if not it's ceiling down, big chase through customers decor and it all needs sorting after. There's so much more to it than people think. New builds yes ok pretty straight forward with first fix but it's not all new builds.

 

[yorksparky]

Thanks for all the input, I really appreciate it. Im not afraid of physical work, and Im under no illusion that its a physically demanding job. As I have no experience Im considering looking at the wiring I have done in my parents garage again, Maybe fit a box with some RCD units as its only fused at the moment, and make the wiring all nice and neat and take some photos of my work to show people. Im going to call places local to me and see if I can come along on some jobs for free (thanks dpelectricalltd good idea!). I have studied 1 year of a mechatronic engineering degree and 1 year of an industrial design degree, so some relevant material there in terms of electrical theory certainly. Im not doing well on my university course, cant find the motivation for all theory and no practice.

Sorry dave, yes you are correct I fitted some SOCKETS not plugs!!

Also Tools. I have a basic mulitmeter and the usual set of DIY type tools, is there anything specific I could get that will make me more appealing as a potential trainee?

 

[JD6400]

Hand tools and above all a decent 18v combi drill will go along way !
And of course your own transport .

 

[johnboy6083]

Industrial can be months of cutting steel, installing cable trays, conduit ect. Then weeks of pulling cables. It can then be months of glanding. The electrical industry is wonderfully diverse, and one that I'm proud to be a part of. If you do a short course, then you are restricting yourself to a very small part of it. Do a city and guilds technical certificate, along with an nvq, and your future earning potential can be a lot higher.

 

[Engineer54]

I think you'll be an absolute fool to throw in your Degree training!! Far better to continue and if you want to be more biased towards the electrical side of things, think about an electrical/electronic HND/HNC part time study to run in parallel with your degree. The opportunities open to you when all your studies are complete, will far outweigh anything you could hope to achieve, even with meaningful C&G, and NVQs AM2 etc, (let alone with just the useless C&G's that these ''quick fix'' training centres want to sell you) which will take you around good 2 years or more to gain anyway!!

You're young, so you want pull your socks-up and get yourself ''motivated'' NOW, because it will be a dam sight harder as you get older, and probably too late then anyway, as you'll also have a family to provide for... I'm afraid the Real World is a lot harder place than most think, when they are young.

 

[RISElectrical]

P.S. a 17th edition 3 day course can be had for £300

 

[highspark]

The simple answer here is don't bother! Nobody is taking on and if they are they want lads with experience on the cheap. The only other way you will get in is cash in hand passing tools to a boss.

 

[RISElectrical]

Lots of people are only taking on year 3 apprentices now. maybe its not financially viable to take on year 1s apparently and because colleges are saying that you only need practical experience for NVQ3 then no point taking on until year 3 so they at least have a theoretical knowledge to start with.

 

[yorksparky]

Ok again thanks for all who gave input. Yes Im sure a degree is great to have... if you have the determination to finish it and get a good grade. I have lost my enthusiasm for all the theory and no practical work. I would love to get a degree but its not for me. Also of my friends who have graduated, they are either earning minimum wage, or "on placement" (working for nothing).

Currently Im driving a morris minor, which is ok for local trips but its too much trouble if I want serious reliable transport. Im thinking a volvo 240 or 850 estate, which can be had for less than the value of the minor anyway! Be sad to see it go though, great little car.

Guy across the road from me has said he may have a job for me this week, just to come along and test me out. We shall see.

Thanks again,