For many people, a career within the electrical industry remains an interesting and varied choice. Whilst the original term is ‘Electro-Mechanical Engineering’ we will simply refer to the subject as the Electrical Industry. In addition, we will stay with the UK market and especially items relating to the domestic and commercial sectors rather than global issues. We will begin by reviewing the main issues first and come back to the ‘add-ons’ later, because of the huge number of options available as a career within this subject.

On consideration, we observe two forms of access into 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. Throughout this document we will simply refer to two types of people the ‘Junior’ and the ‘Mature’ entrants.

Mature students, or entrants, often train so that they can become self-employed and work on their own projects without having to pay wages to external electricians. Those who join as Junior Entrants, on the other hand, appear to do so with the aim of joining an established electrical firm – in order to gain further qualifications and experience whilst picking up practical and other work-place skills. To be fair, young apprentices leaving school will have a lot of supplementary skills to learn during their early years as a working adult.

The two different ways into the industry have two separate methods of preparation. Junior entrants go through NVQ training in England and Wales, and SVQ training in Scotland. As part of the training program an NVQ would be a requirement to attain. New employees gain the necessary course work and testing elements through an apprenticeship or some form of suitable work program.

Mature Entrants, with the possible aim of entering the market from a self-employed perspective, seem to focus on attaining the most commercially viable qualifications (without the need for the NVQ element.) i.e. Those certifications that will get them up and running with the best financial return from their training investment. 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.

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. 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.

Wages for ‘Junior Entrants’ can become as high as 30,000 or more per annum with the right experience, although starting salaries are around 12,000. Conversely, the UK newspapers often report experienced mature electricians can expect an income of anything up to 70.000. That aside, many added costs need to be remembered by self employed people in order to make their business work. Allocations for personal/professional insurance will also have to be catered for. Aside from that, the current skills shortage within the UK still means that there’s lots of high value work out there. If a student wanted to work every day of the week this would be possible in some areas. To achieve the high salaries of 70+ thousand then you will need to put in very long hours and commit yourself fully.

To be fair, most Junior and Mature electricians experience very different working hours to each other. Monday to Friday 9-5 would be the working week of most ‘Junior Entrants’. The Mature market is however often reliant as to when their client base is available, especially in the domestic sector. And yet, a huge number of self-employed electricians operate during the main part of the working week by focusing on office and small business systems.

Any specialist knowledge the Junior Entrant gains whilst in someone’s employ is usually down to the sectors of industry that company works in. Whereas the mature entrant can gain knowledge from any trade source – even one outside of the core of electrical 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’. This could be an area of interest to both Junior and Mature Entrants, and with the expected growth and governmental (both UK & EEC) support, it could provide some highly lucrative employment and business opportunities.

Copyright Scott Edwards. Visit Electrical Qualifications or 2391 Courses.