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Due to the exciting choices available, the electrical industry offers jobs that many people choose. Whilst the original term is ‘Electro-Mechanical Engineering’ we will simply refer to the subject as the Electrical Industry. Also, for ease we will concentrate on those principles that sit within the domestic and commercial markets for the UK. 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.

The electrical market has in our opinion two methods of entry. Initially there’s the more traditional apprenticeship approach, but equally there is now an alternative, suited to those who are keen to enter later in their life. To clarify, we’ll label each of them as the ‘Mature Entrants’ and the ‘Junior 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. On the other hand, to gain further credentials and experience ‘Junior Entrants’ tend to work for a recognised electrical firm. Often a young apprentice will be in their first job since leaving school, and will therefore have a host of ancillary skills to learn during their first few years as a working adult.

Clearly these two options have both differing training styles and methods of entry. Junior Entrants are heavily linked with NVQ’s (or the Scottish equivalent - SVQ’s.) Whilst the core syllabus is relatively similar to non-NVQ commercial training, there is a particular requirement to attain the actual NVQ qualifications as part of the overall training program. This means that work programs or apprenticeships have to be sought in order to arrange the necessary course work and testing phases of work.

Instead of seeking a work-based training environment, the Mature Entrant often seems to focus on working as a self employed person where different qualifications to NVQ’s are preferred. Instead most of them aim for the techniques that will get them up and running as quickly as possible and give them the best return against the cost to train in the first place. Although this may offer quicker and more commercial options, it does reduce the official requirements set for certain areas of the industry.

So we have two defined routes laid out - one being for general employment and the other centred on self-employment. For the sake of this document we will assume that everyone involved in electrical employment is working full-time. The aptitude and talent for getting things done can affect the levels of salary as well as any experience or knowledge gained.

Although starting wages for ‘Junior Entrants’ are around 13k p.a. they can rise above 30k p.a. but this does depend on their level of experience. That said, due to the UK press telling people that electricians can get salaries in excess of 70k p.a., it is more difficult to gauge incomes for ‘Mature Entrants’. Irrespective of this salary level many self-employed people also need to manage extra business costs such as tools, clothes and vans. Furthermore, professional items such as accountancy, tax and insurance need to be considered to make the business work properly. However, the driving force remains the UK skills shortage and this means that there’s a load of work available. Without a doubt, the market would allow for some people to work a full seven days a week. Whilst figures of seventy to a hundred thousand are often bandied around in the press, they do not often inform you of the long hours you would need to work to achieve this.

For the most part there is a strong difference between the Junior and Mature Entrants’ working week. Most of the work for Junior Entrant electricians will be on a simple 9-5, Monday to Friday basis. Whereas the Mature market can be more dependent on the domestic market for some - i.e. weekend and evening work, when their clients are available and back from work. There are however lots of opportunities for self-employed electricians to do work on small business systems during normal office hours.

Once a Junior Entrant is employed within a company, then any follow-on knowledge they gain is often down to the employers’ activity as opposed to anything else. The mature entrant, on the other hand, may seek training outside of their core electrical field, possibly including plumbing and gas work. Without a doubt the extra skills help them in their overall employ whether this is commercial or domestic work.

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.

(C) 2009 - S. Edwards. Hop over to Part P Electrical or Electrical Training Courses.

A fraction of the working population in Great Britain are happy with what they do for a living. Naturally most will just stay there. You’ve reached this paragraph, which at a minimum indicates that you’re considering or may be ready for a change.

Prior to considering individual training courses, find an expert who can talk you through the right type of training for you. A person who will get to know your personality, and discover what job role you’ll be most comfortable with:

* Do you like working on your own or do you find company is an important option?

* What do you require from the market sector you work in? (If it’s stability you’re after, you might think twice about banks or the building industry right now.)

* Having completed your retraining, would you like your skills to take you through to retirement?

* Do you want your retraining to be in a market sector where you believe your chances of gainful employment are high until retirement?

It would be an idea for you to find out more about the IT industry - there are greater numbers of jobs than staff to fill them, because it’s a rare career choice where the industry is growing. In contrast to what some people would have you think, IT is not full of nerdy individuals lost in their PC’s all day long (some jobs are like that of course.) Most positions are taken by ordinary men and women who enjoy a very nice lifestyle due to better than average wages.

Often, trainers provide mainly work-books and reference manuals. It’s not a very interesting way to learn and not really conducive to achieving retention.

If we’re able to get all of our senses involved in our learning, then we often see hugely increased memory retention as a result.

The latest home-based training features interactive CD and DVD ROM’s. Instructor-led tutorials will mean you’ll find things easier to remember by way of their teaching and demonstrations. You can then test yourself by interacting with the software and practicing yourself.

It would be silly not to view examples of the courseware provided before you hand over your cheque. What you want are instructor-led video demonstrations and interactive audio-visual sections with practice modules.

Avoid training that is purely online. You want physical CD/DVD ROM course materials where obtainable, enabling them to be used at your convenience - you don’t want to be reliant on a quality and continuous internet connection.

The way a programme is physically sent to you isn’t always given the appropriate level of importance. How many parts is the training broken down into? And in what order and what control do you have at what pace it arrives?

Drop-shipping your training elements one stage at a time, according to your exam schedule is the usual method of releasing your program. This sounds logical, but you should consider these factors:

What if you don’t finish every section? And what if the order provided doesn’t meet your requirements? Due to no fault of yours, you may go a little slower and consequently not get all your materials.

Put simply, the very best answer is to have a copy of their prescribed order of study, but make sure you have all of your learning modules right from the beginning. You then have everything if you don’t manage to finish inside of their required time-scales.

Looking at the myriad of choice out there, it’s not really surprising that the majority of trainees get stuck choosing the job they will follow.

Flicking through a list of IT job-titles is a complete waste of time. The majority of us don’t really appreciate what the neighbours do for a living - so we’re in the dark as to the intricacies of a particular IT career.

To get through to the essence of this, we need to discuss a variety of definitive areas:

* Your hobbies and interests - these often define what things will give you the most reward.

* Do you hope to accomplish a specific objective - like becoming self-employed in the near future?

* Have you thought about job satisfaction vs salary?

* Many students don’t properly consider the amount of work needed to achieve their goals.

* You have to appreciate the differences between each area of training.

To completely side-step the confusing industry jargon, and discover the most viable option for your success, have an in-depth discussion with an advisor with years of experience; someone that can impart the commercial reality whilst covering all the qualifications.

Don’t forget: the course itself or an accreditation is not what you’re looking for; the particular job that you want to end up in is. Far too many training organisations put too much weight in the actual accreditation.

It’s quite usual, in many cases, to find immense satisfaction in a year of study only to end up putting 20 long years into something completely unrewarding, as a consequence of not performing the correct level of soul-searching at the beginning.

It’s a good idea to understand what industry will expect from you. What accreditations you’ll need and how you’ll go about getting some commercial experience. It’s also worth spending time considering how far you think you’ll want to build your skill-set as it will affect your choice of certifications.

Prior to embarking on a particular training program, trainees are advised to chat over the exact market requirements with a skilled professional, to make sure the retraining program covers all that is required.

(C) 2009 S. Edwards. Pop to Graphic Design Courses or www.AdultCareersAdvice.co.uk/ACAT.html.

For those looking to formalise your skill set at the Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator (MCSA) study level, the best devices on sale are based on CD and DVD ROM’s using interactive training. So if you have a certain amount of knowledge but are about to formalise your skills with certification, or are just about to get started, you’ll come across interactive MCSA courses to cater for you.

Each of these levels requires a specific course, so verify that you’re on the right one in advance of spending your money. Find a provider that is keen to understand you, and what you’d like to do, and one that has the ability to supply you with the clear facts to decide.

Now, why should we consider commercially accredited qualifications rather than the usual academic qualifications gained through tech’ colleges and universities?

With fees and living expenses for university students becoming a tall order for many, along with the industry’s increasing awareness that vendor-based training is closer to the mark commercially, there has been a dramatic increase in Microsoft, CompTIA, CISCO and Adobe certified training programmes that educate students for much less time and money.

They do this through honing in on the actual skills required (along with an appropriate level of related knowledge,) instead of covering masses of the background ‘padding’ that computer Science Degrees often do - to pad out the syllabus.

In simple terms: Accredited IT qualifications provide exactly what an employer needs - the title says it all: as an example - I am a ‘Microsoft Certified Professional’ in ‘Planning and Maintaining a Windows 2003 Infrastructure’. Consequently employers can look at the particular needs they have and which qualifications are required to fulfil that.

A lot of trainers will only offer basic 9am till 6pm support (maybe a little earlier or later on certain days); It’s rare to find someone who offers late evening or full weekend cover.

Be wary of any training providers who use ‘out-of-hours’ messaging systems - with your call-back scheduled for the next ‘working’ day. It’s not a lot of help when you’ve got study issues and need an answer now.

Be on the lookout for colleges that have multiple support offices across multiple time-zones. Every one of them needs to be seamlessly combined to give a single entry point together with access round-the-clock, when you need it, with no hassle.

Unless you insist on support round-the-clock, you’ll very quickly realise that you’ve made a mistake. You may not need it during the night, but you’re bound to use weekends, early mornings or even late evenings at some point.

Lately, do you find yourself questioning how safe your job is? For most people, this isn’t an issue until we experience a knock-back. But in today’s marketplace, the reality is that our job security simply doesn’t exist anymore, for nearly everyone now.

When we come across growing skills shortages coupled with escalating demand of course, we almost always find a newly emerging type of market-security; driven by the constant growth conditions, companies find it hard to locate the number of people required.

Looking at the computing industry, a key e-Skills investigation demonstrated a 26 percent shortage in trained professionals. Alternatively, you could say, this clearly demonstrates that the UK can only find three properly accredited workers for each four job positions existing now.

This disturbing fact reveals the urgent need for more technically certified computing professionals around the country.

In reality, acquiring professional IT skills throughout the next year or two is almost definitely the safest career direction you could choose.

Adding in the cost of exam fees upfront then including an exam guarantee is popular with many companies. However, let’s consider what’s really going on:

They’ve allowed costings for it by some means. It’s definitely not free - they’ve just worked it into the package price.

The fact is that if a student pays for their relevant examinations, one after the other, they will be much more likely to pass every time - since they’ll think of the cost and therefore will put more effort into their preparation.

Find the best exam deal or offer available at the time, and save having to find the money early. In addition, it’s then your choice where to do the examinations - meaning you can choose a local testing centre.

Why borrow the money or pay in advance (plus interest of course) on exams when you didn’t need to? A great deal of money is made because training colleges are getting paid upfront for exams - and banking on the fact that many won’t be taken.

It’s worth noting, with most ‘Exam Guarantees’ - the company controls how often and when you are allowed to do a re-take. Subsequent exam attempts are only authorised at the company’s say so.

Splashing out often many hundreds of pounds extra on ‘Exam Guarantees’ is short-sighted - when study, commitment and preparing with good quality mock and practice exams is what will get you through.

(C) S. Edwards 2009. Hop over to www.Retraining4Adults.co.uk/vretadu.html or MCTS Course.

The salaries of Plumbers are often highlighted in the national press. Salaries of 30-70k p.a. are often discussed, along with the lack of plumbers within the UK. So, is this really the position or is this basically untrue? Without a doubt, a fully experienced Plumber can command salaries of such levels. To be fair, the higher earnings of 70-100k p.a. are generally for those working within the self-employed field.

It is fairly usual to expect working hours of 9am to 6pm, Monday to Friday with a reputable employer. Indeed salaries of between 15k and 30k p.a. form part of what is expected from employed status in this area, along with the added reward of holiday pay and sickness allowance. However, if the self employed person is willing to work longer than the normal working hours then more money can be earned. This is clear when self employed plumbers have to work evenings and weekends, where their domestic clients are working during the day.

On a personal level remains the issue self-employment, something that does not become everybody. This can include getting to grips with advertising & marketing, getting your own cost-per-hour correct and the need to learn and use good ‘business’ sense. Furthermore, additional costs such as materials and transport, along with legal and accountancy fees will need to be paid. Whilst it is expected that the benefits will be high, the costs can mount up though they should always remain a small part of the income overall. Certainly the downsides are virtually always beaten by the income!

Initially, by searching for standard work a Student Entrant can get the majority of training especially with working knowledge and experience. On the other hand, the Self Employed Entrant needs to increase their list plumbing credentials as soon as possible. In fairness it is the ‘domestic’ market rather than the commercial sector that attracts the majority of the self-employed workers in the UK. (Not all of them, but the main do!)

With reference to education in Plumbing, there is a likeness needed by each part of the industry in relation to the certification elements. The issue of NVQ’s (or SVQ’s in Scotland) nevertheless appears to cause some difference.

To begin with, the Student Entrant appears to rely more heavily on the NVQ structure than the Self Employed Entrant. In trying to meet their client’s needs many Self Employed Entrants will employ a wider range of qualifications. To satisfy their typical household-based client base many self-employed persons will need to quickly focus on the relative domestic skill sets. It is within the workplace - where the NVQ element can be appraised that many Student Entrants carry on with their apprenticeship after having covered the key fundamentals through a college scheme. Considering that it is a cheaper way to study then the Student can make practical savings from the start. It is often by gaining certifications faster, by being motivated by a more commercial standpoint that the Self Employed Entrant will achieve considerable financial benefits before a Student Entrant.

Clearly this illustrates the need for a careers discussion that covers certifications and study alongside those of financial returns. It is extremely difficult for adults with a family to look after and needing 20kp.a. to consider going back to college and spending 3 years on low paid-apprenticeship work. Normally, self-employed students to pay for their courses themselves whereas the younger Student Entrants have the majority of their courses paid for them as part of their apprenticeships. For self-employed people these costs are set by the course structure and the level of certification sought and can end up between 3k-10k+.

Whilst the Self Employed Entrant can consider a wider range of education forms including private colleges the Student Entrant is limited to known further-education colleges. It is the lead into familiar skill-sets and qualifications that commercially fixed plumbing course companies offer as part of their training paths. This method offers key advantages to Self Employed Students, allowing them to train evenings, part-time or on self-study classes thereby continuing with their existing jobs and maintaining their financial situation. With the high number of colleges it makes sense to gather as much technical data as you can. We have provided adverts and links from several to allow you to come back and review your options, so why not book mark this page (CTRL-D).

It is through the use of bonus courses that many plumbing students want to increase their ‘marketability’. It is by training in areas such as Gas, Green Energy and Electrical that Plumbers can gain extra certifications. Gas training has always been a route for Plumbers to consider, as this forms part of the common domestic and commercial heating system.

Gas Training, with subjects followed by a focus on NVQ’s is recognised as an accurate and exact training program. For those who trained as a plumber first and are now looking at extra skills this also offers many options for their on-going development. It is from this position that many believe the mix of Plumbing/Gas Training is more apt to the mature student. For the Mature Student the emphasis appears to be reducing the NVQ elements and focussing on the core subjects.

The self-employed professional appears to benefit from this distinct training mixture. The opportunity to learn a wider range of perceived skill-sets (whilst earning money from them) becomes the attraction. Instead of having to rely upon third parties to complete certain skill-sets, this adds to their commercial viability. Whilst sub-contracting can reduce the earning of a particular job perhaps more important is the deterioration of the value in a customer’s eye as they have to wait for jobs to be handled by others before completion of the overall task. To be fair the more talent a Plumber has in their own job then the more they have to offer their client base.

In retrospect, the Self Employed Entrant has the potential to achieve a much higher and more readily available income stream than Student Entrant, but to do so they need to develop both their business skills and achieve a broader range of certifications. Note: The above information is solely relative to the UK market, industry requirements and policies.

Copyright Scott Edwards. Hop over to Plumber Courses or AdultCareersAdvice.co.uk/ACAO.html.