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I used to earn ok working in an office full time (magazine publishing), got bored senseless as 5 days in the office 9-5.30. Retrained as dog groomer in my mid 30s, now working from my home based studio and finish at 4 every day with relaxing breaks & earn more than before! Life changing š
Yes, Iām a sole trader & have to do self assessments every tax year. I suppose the downside is keeping perfect invoices & receipts etc. Iād rather not disclose my income as so many groomers are badly undervalued & underpaid especially at places like Pets At Home. But itās enough for a good of quality living including holidays, sick days, savings & pension contributions etc. plus I can see my own pups all dayš
You are absolutely right !! The thing is these kinds of jobs are exhausting .
It seems manual Jobs are considered second class done only by immigrants .
Sorry for my bad English.
Trades have been revalued quite a bit in the past few years. Also, people in trades find work quite easily if they are good, so they won't be on this sub lamenting lack of work. The squeaky wheel is the one you notice more.
That's true, it depends heavily also on the trade. There is a bit of difference between a scaff and a sparkie. Some are much heavier on the body than others.
I suppose there are a few reasons related to age, ability or disability, (a lot of people fall out of it as they get older or injured) and working in fields dominated by straight men can be daunting in a lot of ways, including for a lot of straight men who donāt fit the mould.
Iāve always been interested in trade work but perhaps not enough to want to prove myself constantly or put up with banter all the time or on the other hand then be treated with kid gloves and end up feeling less than, assuming Iād get accepted in the first place. I know there is demand for diverse people in the fields but thereās often an immense pressure to not want to be the one to let the side down or have to spend a lot of time working out to keep up.
That said I tend to assume most office jobs arenāt especially posh or well paid and usually pay less than good vocational trades (ie plumbing). Thereās plenty of comfortably middle class people in those jobs. I do as someone largely working minimum wage shift work tend to think of all jobs that have paid lunches or weekends and bank holidays off or double pay as a massive luxury though.
Public sector trades (regarding physical labour) is probably better for longevity. There's a reason people joke about council workers not working (it's because they actually have to follow health and safety regulations regarding breaks). As for pressure not to fall behind, in a good team, each person plays to their strengths, so someone who might not have as much physical power could make use of other skills like dexterity or eye for detail etc
Yep, absolutely. I'm retired now, but nearly all my friends who have the greatest work security and decent incomes are in trades: hard landscaping, painting and decorating, plumbing, electricians, carpenters/joiners. They all seem to have work coming out of their ears and can pick and choose which jobs they take on.
I donāt think trade work is very part time friendly unless you want to be stuck labouring for someone. Best to get stuck in, develop your skills and then go off on your own when you develop the confidence/build up a good stock of tools
This subā is full of people looking for cushy jobs on at least Ā£35k a year because theyāve just graduated. Theyāve also been unemployed since graduatingā¦ā¦
Trades and apprenticeships are the way to go as itāll be a long time before AI takes over plumbing, boiler servicing or re-roofing your house.
Yep. Thereās No wfh, early starts, late finishes, working in cold, dark, wet, no pension contributions or paid days off. Itās not attractive to people.
The money now is very good though, I know chippys making Ā£500 a day.
I work in a trade. 7-4 (normally finish 3-3:30), I get pension contributions and 28 days paid holiday. You get to keep fit and im not stuck at a desk all day even if it is cold dark and wet sometimes.
I've just transferred to Aviation and there isn't any of them downsides you listed. Alot of what you listed can be found in the automotive world though
Lol late finishes. Most are done for the day at 3:30pm. As for no pension contributions or sick, if you're self employed, it's on you to put money into a SIPP and to save for when you can't work. Trades make good money now, so there's absolutely no excuse for poor financial planning.
My guys are on site til 5 or gone. If you want to make good money you put the hours in.
If you chip off at 330, over a week youāve lost 7 and half hours. Thatās a days pay lost.
Being unemployed cause they want to start at the top, I might add. I started years ago as Xmas temp in a department store, dusting shelves. I worked my way up to management, then across to an adjacent industry, then studying nights and weekends I managed to move to finance. Not everyone in a "cushy job" is there without having worked hard to get there.
Thanks, thatās my point, you get the cushy jobs after years of hard graft and playing the game. You donāt get them fresh out of education with no experience or contacts.
Not even years, you just have to be motivated and actually think about your life direction. People would sooner rot for 10 years in a call centre/retail etc job than spend 1-2 years going hard and find a job they look forwards to going to each day.
It's a cultural issue, in my eyes, that so many people treat jobs like an inconvenience that should slowly become easier with time. A big chunk of the economy is staffed by people who would rather be anywhere but work, yet if you tell them to leave their job if they hate it so much the excuses start rolling out.
Working in the public sector vs warehousing was enlightening. One industry is full of dead behind the eyes people who view an office job as a human right, whereas in warehousing once you get out of the bottom level of operations it's full of immigrants who've upskilled and come to work making jokes and ready to send orders out on time.
I think for most people who come from abroad, like me, we have no safety net in the country so we can only rely on ourselves. The only way to survive is to constantly upskill and move up, whatever the cost, and make the most of whatever situation we land in. For me the past 4 years have been hell, working full time, studying basically full time, sleeping when I can. It's the only way to get where I want though, so I carry on. One more year and I'm done. I've met also plenty of British people with the same mentality. There is a substata of population that would like to be paid to do nothing, that is true, and unfortunately the broken wheel gets all the attention.
Fully agree with everything, including the point about British people.
Best of luck with everything, when you say you're done do you mean citizenship or are you leaving the country?
Some people think that a piece of paper makes them experts. Knowledge is 10% a piece of paper and 90% real life experience. And if this finance thing doesn't work, I can always go into plumbing. My dad was a plumber, I've learned enough to be quite useful on site š¤£
How many years ago? Because thatās not how jobs work any more.
Not to mention they specifically mentioned people with degrees. Why would someone who has spent 3 years and Ā£50k debt on a degree go and start dusting shelves in a department store and hope to work their way up?
Because you want a job and career. You and thousands of other people have that piece of paper that says youāve been to university. If itās the likes of a business management or media studies degree there arenāt the relevant jobs out there so youāll be waiting around forever for āyourā job.
Now if you are a doctor, solicitor, architect or similar then thatās different, but then you also wouldnāt be posting on Reddit how difficult it is to get a job because youād have one.
Plenty of law, medicine, and architecture grads cannot get jobs at the moment. There arenāt even enough training places for any of them so most people canāt fully qualify and are stuck in limbo.
We need to have age flairs on this sub, honestly. I donāt think older people really understand how dire everything is. Someone posted the other day that they were an experienced paralegal and gave it up to work in a bar because they earned more.
Nobody is going and getting a degree and then working as a temp in a department store to āwork their way upā. They may as well at least go and earn a pittance in a slightly relevant field, and āgive the manager a firm handshake and stay there for fifty years and youāll end up as the CEO!ā isnāt how any of this works any more.
I did mechanical engineering back home, then here I would have needed to redo some exams to get it recognised, and I didn't have the kind of money they were asking. So I just improvised, not the best way in your eyes but it worked out quite well for me. Now in the process of getting a chartership in finance while working. It did beat staying around unemployed. We are talking 16 years ago, not yesterday but neither centuries ago. If I had to do it all again, I would do the same. If you work you can move up. If you are unemployed you stay still. If it doesn't work for you, obviously you do what makes you happy.
You want to look up past Tesco CEOs if you donāt think you can work your way up from shelf filler to CEO. I went from being a van boy (basically helping deliver white goods) to owning my own business at twenty one, no degree needed thank you.
We donāt need age flairs, we can all tell who the entitled twenty somethings are. The majority of twenty years olds though arenāt posting on here because they are out there working and getting on with a career.
Also the job market isnāt dire, more people have a job today than ever before and unemployment is still at a lower percentage rate than almost ever before.
And we can all tell who the out of touch boomers are.
Nobody working as a shelf stacker today is going to be Tescos CEO. I genuinely donāt know how to break to you that the world has changed in the last 60 years.
The job market is absolutely dire and young people are barely scraping enough together to survive, but sure, itās because theyāre all entitled. They arenāt buying houses because theyāre entitled, they arenāt having kids because theyāre entitled, they arenāt earning living wages because theyāre entitled.
I left the country and make triple what the exact same job makes in the UK, how entitled of me. I should have just walked in there with a firm handshake and told them Iād man the fax machine for 20p per hour and then one day Iāll be CEO.
The same nonsense every time and the same ridiculous nonsense out of date advice, like clockwork.
If it did happen, then I'd be an outlier anyway and most likely someone controlled by the rest of the board and used as a publicity op. On the whole C level executives are born upper or upper middles class, the stats are undeniable.
In a previous job we had a cleaner, she got noticed as she was really street smart and marketing for herself. Became receptionist, got put on training and became HR assistant. Then I left, from Linkdin seems she is now generalist. (Oh, 6 years ago as you are hung up on dates). I understand the frustration of having a degree everyone told you would open you all doors, maybe having debt cause of it and then you realize it gives you nothing. What many don't understand, apart from professions in which the degree is compulsory (like medicine or law), experience is king. Just cause one has passed exams on a subject, it doesn't mean they can do that thing in real life. Life is different from books and book exercises, very different. The ones that understand it usually find a job decently fast. The ones whose personality is the degree struggle more, cause they get hung up on getting "the job they studied for" from the start. If the door of your dream job is locked, get in from the back or from the window. Once you're in you course correct.
There are PLENTY of ābusiness managementā jobs out there, and usually graduate is the lowest position in the business from which to work up from.
I do agree to an extent though, getting into a company is the priority rather than having the perfect role.
Exactly, once you're in 1- you get workplace experience, 2- you can get noticed, you become a known quantity, you are not a CV in a pile any more. You can look at internal transfers, training opportunities, networking. If nothing else being employed makes you a much more attractive candidate when looking again.
Yh but the point is that shouldn't be considered cushy. 30k has been the standard grad scheme salary for years. There's been minimal progress. Then people get mad when these people point out this shitty situation.
Switzerland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg have higher salaries, lower taxes and functional healthcare systems so youāre right, I donāt even need to go that far lol
The standards in the UK are really in the trenches if 35K is considered privileged. No wonder wages are stagnating if you have losers thinking 35K (before taxes) is some kind of jackpot. Literally dragging everyone down with them because they have no expectations from life.
Can we not move away from working class people trying to dunk on each other? Why do people feel the need to attack other working class people for trying to do soemthign that they think will improve their lives?
āDo an apprenticeshipā is the new āgo to universityā.
I donāt think people realise that itās not young people being lazy and not wanting to work, itās that no matter what you do the wages are shit, and people are exhausted at being told to just take another three years of no pay to retrain.
I was talking to my uncle yesterday(he's just retired as a plasterer/roofer) explaining that I wish I'd done a plumbing course before uni like I had planned 16 years ago, he was blown away that my mam basically banned me from doing so and asked "why don't you just retrain now"...
It took me a good 20 seconds for my brain to reboot and explain that I would literally starve to death if I retrained as there's no help for single 30 something men who live alone, the idea of living on an appretices wages(or being accepted as one with a law degree) just isn't feasible or realistic.
He is gutted I didn't come to him a decade ago, so he could have trained me up and given me his business instead of just closing it... And doesn't understand me when I say, "That would have been an awesome thing to do. However, what about everyone else?"
I don't think many of us want to live in this system, cronyism and nepotism running wild yet nothing decent for the vast majority of us.
Literally, no matter how hard I try, I just can't seem to get a decent job, and since losing my job in Feb I've had a couple of interviews and that's it... The idea of retraining at this moment is so far away its comical.
I donāt think people realise how hard it is to survive on an apprentice wage if youāre not living at home with your parents. Itās not like āback in their dayā when it might cover rent.
So you need parents who support doing an apprenticeship (many of whom have had it drilled into them that going to uni is the better thing to do), *and* are willing to support you until you qualify. Or you need to do a full time apprenticeship and somehow work a full time job on top to scrape by.
This thread in particular has attracted a lot of much older people who genuinely donāt understand that the world has changed massively and young people are being shat on from every angle, while desperately trying to do the right thing.
Trade work is just as corrupt and soul destroying, full of cowboys and consultants having you register as Self Employed to avoid tax and skirting rules designed to keep people safe.
Only with the added benefit of the work effort con that unless you've done 60 hours for no pay, its not hard graft enough.
Just two examples that come to mind: P. Flannery and M. O' Brien Group. They both have apprenticeship schemes where they train people to drive various pieces of equipment. There are more. The fact you don't know about them doesn't mean they don't exist.
I work in construction and have had dealings with Flannerys. It's a box tick. All they care about is making money and if a driver ain't making them money they get booted off site.
Oh snap, i work in construction too, although not site based. They are one of my suppliers. The programme exists, again the fact you don't know about it doesn't mean it's not there. Same for quite a few other companies. If one wants to get in the industry and they are starting from 0, the ways are there. Obviously, apprenticeship programmes are partly government sponsored, so it's not charity, but it's still a way to get in the industry for someone who is passionate about it and wouldn't know how otherwise.
It gets better as you get more experienced and you drive bigger cranes. Not sure on the going pay for chippies, might be better than cranes. It's still a good alternative to a dead end minimum wage job. From crane operator you can do courses and go into H&S, other courses and become lifting manager. There are various opportunities depending on one's interests.
Itās variance of work as market changes. A chippy can do wardrobes in a house or first fix on a building site.
When construction slows crane drivers only have larger projects to work for which can slow down work significantly.
Age has nothing to do with it. Just start on as a labourer or a trades mate and learn as much as possible. Seen people doing it for 30 years and still be dog shit
Thatās a fantastic reply, and thatās why they need tradesmen because they donāt have a clue how to use their tools. But your self employed plumber will be invoicing, ordering and doing their VAT return and SA all on a computer.
How does that degree work for the graduates now?
To be fair using a computer is just a basic life skill and is not even remotely equivalent to having a degree. How many tradesmen can do a non trade professional job? Almost none. How many tradesmen earn more than an accountant or engineer over the course of their career? Again almost none.
I think there is space for both, people have different skills and different interests and attitudes. The problem is when one is seen as better than the other, when some jobs are looked down upon. You cannot live without doctors, you cannot live without brickies or sparkies. Everyone has their importance (maybe with the exceptions of estate agents š¤£).
Using a computer like that is an incredibly basic life skill. How many tradesmen would be able to work as software engineers? Meanwhile I do the vast majority of the tradey work I need myself.
There's no need to feel insecure or like it's a competition.
The trade āskillsā you are using will also be at a very basic level. Iām guessing you arenāt re-wiring your house, fitting new windows, putting up an extension or new roof, possibly not fitting a gas boiler either. How many software engineers could do that?
That's my point, you said you do basic computer work, I said I do basic 'tradey' work. This isn't a competition and you don't need to feel insecure or try to put anyone else down. Tradies have their value, office workers have their value, neither is better than the other.
Carpenter and joiner here, bought a cnc machine, learnt to draw in cad, then put that into the cam program and do a production run on the machine, went on a course for Excel years ago, I've written workbooks for mates whom have their own companies, these help them track cost and I can analyse their workflows etc. Mrs works in an office, her workmates struggle putting ikea furniture together, I can cut roofs on or build a bar. Still, looking to go office now as everything fucking aches, 59 isn't a joke.
Do agree that more people should look at trades. Too many people are funneled into the school, to sixth form, to degree pipeline, which spits them out in their early-mid 20s into a shit job market with a piece of paper, no experience and a load of debt. Trades are a much better deal by comparison.
It can end up as a "posh" job as well. I learned a trade, did a part-time degree once I'd settled on it as a career, and now I'm on the technical side. Moving from practical to technical is really sought after as well.
Its more than likely down to there always being work available in the sector and due to an inability to outsource it abroad. I wouldnt call an office job posh work if I had to guess I'd say around 90% of office workers earn less than tradies hell there are a fair few labourers that make 50k pushing brushes and lumping shit about.
People here are quite pro āthe tradesā but aside from finding an apprenticeship, there isnāt much to discuss about them. Career progression is more straightforward and navigating social issues isnāt really so much of an issue in that line of work.
I agree that trades are a good business to get into. But I respectfully disagree with two major premises in this post:
* that trades are not mentioned here. I think they're frequently mentioned, not least because experienced boiler engineers, qualified electricians, and experienced plumbers shall always be demand.
* that doing office work is "posh", or that the trades are not. I agree that it is hard to eradicate the class system (and for full disclosure I would generally be regarded as middle-class) but I don't think we should be trying to reinforce this ideology. Working class folks can work in an office, and middle-class folks can do practical work with their hands.
Reddit is 90% soft hands middle class Tarquin types. They don't do manual labour but they also don't think people who do should be payed as much as they are.
I often get the impression that many people in the trades think that everyone in office work is sneering at them for some reason. In reality no one cares.
I can see one post of a guy being a dick. Far more of the posts were trades people having a go at people who work in an office. It reads like a lot of people have some insecurities about their work when very few people actually care.
I didnāt call all office jobs posh jobs. I said āposh people jobs and office workā Iām not trying to dispel any myths, it was merely an observation that there are very few (if any) posts about trade work (or lack of)
Absolutely worth it.
Browse this sub for a few weeks and you'll see countless threads of people struggling to find work or security or having bad conditions etc and it's so easy to believe that thats the norm but honestly I don't relate to any of that.
I left school into an apprenticeship, I'm now 30 and have always had secure employment, in strong unionised environments where I've had good progression and good pay. I've got a HND qualification that was paid for by one of my employers so no student debts and never needed to sacrifice on education. Really the best of both worlds.
Iāve never had any issues beings chippy nearly 30 been doing it since school. I earn far more than most of the people I know in these office jobs. Being self employed, you can get a real good work life balance, work as much of as little as you need to. If you take pride in what you do youāll never have issues.
Most people on here want to wfh thatās a big factor. I did think about changing careers 1-2 years ago, but this sub has made me so glad I havenāt.
I make Ā£35k
Thatās for a piss easy 36 hour working week, 32 days annual leave plus bank holidays, cash healthcare plan, decent pension 5% employee 10% employer,
Pick up my own jobs if I need to make extra but Iām generally happy enough with the ok wage, great work life balance as my kids are still young.
If I was willing to do the long days / heavy graft Iād be able to make make considerably more but that wouldnāt quite fit in with my life at the minute
Iām not thick, but was never really one for school work etc, learning my trade was one of the best things Iāve ever done to be honest
Depends where you work in the country. If youāre employed, sub contract to a builder or fully self employed.
Im London based and regularly take home 1k+ a week doing 8-3:30ish subbing. More if Iām doing my own jobs. Its great because you can work longer days or weekends aswell if you want to bump up your wage, I also like to travel so I work as much as possible to give me freedom to take more than 28 days off a year lol.
Out of London is definitely less, but if youāre good thereās more money to be made than people realise.
Joists, trusses, 1st&2nd fix, wardrobes, kitchens - everything and anything. So much money to be made at present.
If you can get recommendations and do a little job after a days work all the better.
Eg hours job after work twice a week can charge Ā£75 - Ā£100 each. Thatās Ā£10k a year.
I'd love to work in trade honestly, but since I can't drive and can't learn, unless I found a company who would drive me everywhere - I can't go into it
Training courses are usually not free except sometimes for those on unemployment programs. That being said, I vastly prefer working outdoors. I've done an office job, and I've done WFH. Much prefered my Regular Show type job in park maintenance. Didn't pay as well but it was easier to work more hours, didn't follow me home, was physically healthy and low stress mentally.
Also working in the cold really isn't that bad, you get PPE, company is required to give your thermals in winter and waterproofs. What's worse? Summer heatwaves. You can warm up by working in the cold, but in summer, there is no escape
Yep all I see is. "Wfh 4 days a week, can't believe they want me in the office 1 dayš¤" or "why doesn't everyone cycle to work?" Or "the job market is bad, I applied for 100 jobs and no replies"
Personally, I think A.I will take 50% of I.t jobs in the next 10 years. ( by that I mean there will still be those office jobs but with the power of A.I it will take 1 person to do 2 persons work) If I was in any kind of office job, I'd start learning basic trade skills. Or electrical/mechanical.
Oh and sorry my English is bad, I'm a school drop out, heating and ventilation engineer.
I canāt get AI to write my queries in a way that is consistently correct, never the less saving enough time itās actually beneficial.
Youāre 10 years before AI takes muh job is pretty far away from reality
Somehow it does this on excel as well, incredible how you can ask AI a question being incredibly specific and it canāt even find the best solution, never mind executing the solution correctly.
Itās gonna take my job though for sure
Just think of how fast technology is growing and improving. Even think 5 years of A.I development, the next 10 years will be a much bigger jump than 2x
> Personally, I think A.I will take 50% of I.t jobs in the next 10 years. ( by that I mean there will still be those office jobs but with the power of A.I it will take 1 person to do 2 persons work)
They won't.
Seeing what you've created, changing people's lives, making people happy etc are not limited to trades. I don't know where this attitude comes from that somehow trade work is more worthy than everything else but it gets pretty tiring when people go on about it.
I just work in a shop. I'm not qualified to talk to people about their issues, but my god, my customers are always divulging stuff to me and telling me their feelings. I'm not always ready for it, but I'm a compassionate ear for them (even though I've got my own stuff going on in my life).
My coworkers even get me to go on the till when they know certain customers are in so I can "squeeze information" out of them that they want to know, because everyone just offloads to me. I don't love this aspect at all (as conversation sometimes gets heavy), but I love that my customers feel I'm a safe-space.
I get a lot of tradespeople in and they pretty much all tell me they hate their jobs (some of them running their own successful businesses). I'm saying I get told some deep feelings from them about their work. Think there's a lack of support in their work community to be open about mental and physical health.
Don't think I'll be complaining about my shitty shop job to a tradesman again. Seems like a tough gig and you're right, they absolutely do life-changing work and don't get recognised for that.
I'm absolutely going to get that across to them in future when these workers come in and are feeling bleak.
Electrician here - simply put - Iāve never been busier.
What Iāve seen in the last 2-3 years is that the Skills shortage is starting to make itself known in certain areas.
For instance in my area the factories canāt get hold of - or keep - electricians / fitters and are constantly advertising and getting nowhere - then re-advertising.
The problem in my opinion is that Schools are too focused on making success a paper based reality. Get this qualification and get that one to be successful, go to university and get a degree or 2 and youāll be successful - then those same people look down on us thinking we make little to no money with our ālack of paper qualificationsā š¤¦š¼āāļø
On the other side of the coin - theres Never a shortage of people Wanting a job done for nothing š
Some of the people in this sub are incredibly entitled. They arenāt willing to do an honest days work for fair pay. They want to wfh, no commute, not get their hands dirty. I feel like a boomer saying this but fewer and fewer people are willing to put in a dayās graft. Trades are well paid, especially if you have exceptional skill but you have to get out of bed in the morning and get to the job, rain or shine.
When work starts paying properly again, then you can mention this honest days graft stuff. Until then you don't get to complain. Make work pay properly again, improve conditions and these work shortages will go away. It's that simple however what would you expect from a vindictive crab mentality society
100%
All the grafters are running their own gangs, often with older guys working for them whoāll snort all their pay over the weekend and no show on a Monday.
Itās not. The problem lays with a huge underinvestment in colleges and tuition. We should be paying the good trades coming to retirement good money to pass their skills on. Too much focus on uni lecturers and not enough on these guys.
You have to be in college to get an apprenticeship.
It doesnāt guarantee future employment but it teaches you the basics and gets you ahead of the game whilst youāre young.
Iām a reasonably well off white collar whoās refurbing my whole house. Iāve had renewed respect for trades and donāt understand why youngsters donāt want to get involved. Iāve used plumbers, sparkies, roofers, scaffolders, plasterers and painters/decorators. A lot of them arenāt cheap. They all tell me they could have 365 days a year work if they wanted it. But they also tell me that youngsters they take on are unreliable or canāt hack the physical nature of the workā¦..
>. Iāve had renewed respect for trades and donāt understand why youngsters donāt want to get involved.
No work from home, physically demanding, getting hands dirty, blisteringly hot in the summer, freezing in the winter, and soaking wet any other time of the year.
I'm generalising but most kids want to roll out of bed 2 minutes before they are due to work, turn on a computer, work in their pyjamas for 3 or 4 hours a day and collect 40 grand a year for doing so.
At the manufacturing plant I work in, we are desperate for machine techs. Over the last 4 months I have seen 5 people in their 20's come and go. The reasons they don't last is always . didn't realise how hard it is to wake up early enough to start work at 6am and too physically demanding they are too worn out to do a full week. We have people in their 60's doing this job and young men in their so called prime can't keep up ffs.
>I'm generalising but most kids want to roll out of bed 2 minutes before they are due to work, turn on a computer, work in their pyjamas for 3 or 4 hours a day and collect 40 grand a year for doing so.
Are you saying you wouldn't like to do this, or that it's somehow worse than what you're doing?
Young people are just more motivated to find work that respects them & their time. I used to work full-time in-office, getting up at 5:30-6 every day. Now I WFH 4 days a week. Not only do I get paid way more than I did when I was in the office, I also save around Ā£2500 a year on commute costs. I can get housework done on my lunch break. I get better sleep than I ever have before, and I get more time with my family. Why do you seem to think it's wrong for young people to want that?
I'm 30, I've worked full time in office for nearly a decade before getting this current job. I will never go full-time in-office again. If your company wants to hire more machine techs, maybe they'll have to increase the pay, benefits, reduce working hours, or make other concessions to make the job actually appealing to people.
In all honesty working from home doesn't appeal to me in the slightest and neither does sitting behind a desk all day. I don't mind my job, for the most part I like the team that I'm a part of, we have a good laugh and if one of us is struggling we can see that and we offer to help each other without needing to he asked to.
It's easy to say companies should make jobs more appealing, but some industries have to run 24/7, reducing hours will require more staff and overall pay for the individual. Or charging the customer more money for the product which will make things more expensive for the end consumer.
The pay is representative for the area, we have a subsided canteen, free on site parking, and a great sick pay scheme with 16 weeks full pay and 16 weeks half pay (after 1 full year of service), and 250 hours a year annual leave on top of 2 small factory shutdowns, and a slightly higher than government minimum pension contribution. Other benefits include gym membership, access to various mental health care services and membership to the local Costco.
The trade people are all off working hard enjoying their day and so not living on reddit like the rest of usā¦
Joking aside I totally agree. I miss the feeling of having built something with my hands. So satisfying. I think iād go plumbing if I went that route. Seem to be quite a few plumbers doing well for themselves round me.
Because the people who post on here don't want an actual job.
They want to 'work' from home I.e sit on their sofa all day watching TV and playing games.
I know this because half the people I know do this.
Sit playing games all day with each other.. sending a few emails and still complain about 'work' in the group chat
When did I say everyone should work from home or knock trades people in any way? I took the piss because you attacked everyone who work from home with the old boomer assumption that everyone is dossing.
I feel like im best of both worlds, i work in hybrid sales apprenticeship within the HVAC industry
Im still an apprentice learning construction working with site managers, civil engineers and quantity surveyors,
So u can have both, but itās obvs not the same, i actually started my job journey doing plumbing then labouring, then realised i dont wanna do that for my whole life so i left, done retail then warehousing then eventually its lead to where i am now,
What im tryna advise to people is try it all, u may like trade work u may not, dont knock things till u try it,
Got huge respect for people that work as plumbers,bricklayers,labouring,electrician,hvac installing, etc because its hard graft, that guys that only done cushy jobs wont understand
I'm in a trade, rebuilding turbos and automatic gearboxs also mapping, worked for one of the big 3 German car brands as a mechanical engineer, I'm happy doing what I'm doing now own boss using my hands and mind 8-5 6 days a week and employ some good guys and girls now.
Problem with them courses are they create people who think they know what theyāre doing and end up getting jobs for clients and fucking there house up etc
Do the proper way go to
College and get a apprenticeship on the trade you desire like mostš
I'd love to! I've been working in tech (and have two degrees in fields I do not work in lol) and I got made redundant, so was looking into gardening, or something with my hands. But I can't find anything local really
Trade work is great for people who like to work with their hands and make a different firsthand! Iām crap at building and fixing things but that aspect really appeals to my ADHD, itās way better than sitting at a desk doing nothing all day.
Trade jobs are the ones where you'll never be out of work. It's also really satisfying being good at one of these trades.
Some trades have it worse than others but you just pick one that suits you.
Donāt just think of trades working on building sites or in peopleās houses either. A lot of work that is done by people thought of as trade/ crafts is process monitoring these days. Not all day rate either.
Ā£53k basic in the north. Career average salary pension, 8-3 most days, enhanced rate after that. 36 days leave and donāt work most bank holidays. Tools, PPE and vehicle provided by employer
Been in construction since leaving school , now 35 , various different sectors , now operating cranes on site ,havent earnt less than 62k for the last 5 years , last year was 76k , the early starts , long hours and weekends is what put people off too many young people now just wanna wfh or doss on a computer , hell id do it too if the money was better and the jobs were plentiful , but like op said there are so many office workers looking for employment... you wil never be out of work in the trades / constrcction
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I used to earn ok working in an office full time (magazine publishing), got bored senseless as 5 days in the office 9-5.30. Retrained as dog groomer in my mid 30s, now working from my home based studio and finish at 4 every day with relaxing breaks & earn more than before! Life changing š
How much do you earn, are you self employed?
Yes, Iām a sole trader & have to do self assessments every tax year. I suppose the downside is keeping perfect invoices & receipts etc. Iād rather not disclose my income as so many groomers are badly undervalued & underpaid especially at places like Pets At Home. But itās enough for a good of quality living including holidays, sick days, savings & pension contributions etc. plus I can see my own pups all dayš
Thank's for answering, sorry for being nosy about your income.
You are absolutely right !! The thing is these kinds of jobs are exhausting . It seems manual Jobs are considered second class done only by immigrants . Sorry for my bad English.
Trades have been revalued quite a bit in the past few years. Also, people in trades find work quite easily if they are good, so they won't be on this sub lamenting lack of work. The squeaky wheel is the one you notice more.
Body is fucked by 40 though. I know a few trades and their bodies are ruined.
That's true, it depends heavily also on the trade. There is a bit of difference between a scaff and a sparkie. Some are much heavier on the body than others.
100% my post the other day clearly proved that the people in this sub are above all of that.
I suppose there are a few reasons related to age, ability or disability, (a lot of people fall out of it as they get older or injured) and working in fields dominated by straight men can be daunting in a lot of ways, including for a lot of straight men who donāt fit the mould. Iāve always been interested in trade work but perhaps not enough to want to prove myself constantly or put up with banter all the time or on the other hand then be treated with kid gloves and end up feeling less than, assuming Iād get accepted in the first place. I know there is demand for diverse people in the fields but thereās often an immense pressure to not want to be the one to let the side down or have to spend a lot of time working out to keep up. That said I tend to assume most office jobs arenāt especially posh or well paid and usually pay less than good vocational trades (ie plumbing). Thereās plenty of comfortably middle class people in those jobs. I do as someone largely working minimum wage shift work tend to think of all jobs that have paid lunches or weekends and bank holidays off or double pay as a massive luxury though.
Public sector trades (regarding physical labour) is probably better for longevity. There's a reason people joke about council workers not working (it's because they actually have to follow health and safety regulations regarding breaks). As for pressure not to fall behind, in a good team, each person plays to their strengths, so someone who might not have as much physical power could make use of other skills like dexterity or eye for detail etc
Yep, absolutely. I'm retired now, but nearly all my friends who have the greatest work security and decent incomes are in trades: hard landscaping, painting and decorating, plumbing, electricians, carpenters/joiners. They all seem to have work coming out of their ears and can pick and choose which jobs they take on.
I donāt think trade work is very part time friendly unless you want to be stuck labouring for someone. Best to get stuck in, develop your skills and then go off on your own when you develop the confidence/build up a good stock of tools
This subā is full of people looking for cushy jobs on at least Ā£35k a year because theyāve just graduated. Theyāve also been unemployed since graduatingā¦ā¦ Trades and apprenticeships are the way to go as itāll be a long time before AI takes over plumbing, boiler servicing or re-roofing your house.
I'd like to see AI drink a litre of energy drink and smoke 10 fags before 10am
Yep. Thereās No wfh, early starts, late finishes, working in cold, dark, wet, no pension contributions or paid days off. Itās not attractive to people. The money now is very good though, I know chippys making Ā£500 a day.
I work in a trade. 7-4 (normally finish 3-3:30), I get pension contributions and 28 days paid holiday. You get to keep fit and im not stuck at a desk all day even if it is cold dark and wet sometimes.
Fair play. In my experience, if you want to make proper money in construction, you need to be working for yourself.
I've just transferred to Aviation and there isn't any of them downsides you listed. Alot of what you listed can be found in the automotive world though
Lol late finishes. Most are done for the day at 3:30pm. As for no pension contributions or sick, if you're self employed, it's on you to put money into a SIPP and to save for when you can't work. Trades make good money now, so there's absolutely no excuse for poor financial planning.
My guys are on site til 5 or gone. If you want to make good money you put the hours in. If you chip off at 330, over a week youāve lost 7 and half hours. Thatās a days pay lost.
Being unemployed cause they want to start at the top, I might add. I started years ago as Xmas temp in a department store, dusting shelves. I worked my way up to management, then across to an adjacent industry, then studying nights and weekends I managed to move to finance. Not everyone in a "cushy job" is there without having worked hard to get there.
Thanks, thatās my point, you get the cushy jobs after years of hard graft and playing the game. You donāt get them fresh out of education with no experience or contacts.
Not even years, you just have to be motivated and actually think about your life direction. People would sooner rot for 10 years in a call centre/retail etc job than spend 1-2 years going hard and find a job they look forwards to going to each day. It's a cultural issue, in my eyes, that so many people treat jobs like an inconvenience that should slowly become easier with time. A big chunk of the economy is staffed by people who would rather be anywhere but work, yet if you tell them to leave their job if they hate it so much the excuses start rolling out. Working in the public sector vs warehousing was enlightening. One industry is full of dead behind the eyes people who view an office job as a human right, whereas in warehousing once you get out of the bottom level of operations it's full of immigrants who've upskilled and come to work making jokes and ready to send orders out on time.
I think for most people who come from abroad, like me, we have no safety net in the country so we can only rely on ourselves. The only way to survive is to constantly upskill and move up, whatever the cost, and make the most of whatever situation we land in. For me the past 4 years have been hell, working full time, studying basically full time, sleeping when I can. It's the only way to get where I want though, so I carry on. One more year and I'm done. I've met also plenty of British people with the same mentality. There is a substata of population that would like to be paid to do nothing, that is true, and unfortunately the broken wheel gets all the attention.
Fully agree with everything, including the point about British people. Best of luck with everything, when you say you're done do you mean citizenship or are you leaving the country?
Done with my studies lol I've just done the citizenship, no plans to leave for now š
Oh cool, great to hear
Some people think that a piece of paper makes them experts. Knowledge is 10% a piece of paper and 90% real life experience. And if this finance thing doesn't work, I can always go into plumbing. My dad was a plumber, I've learned enough to be quite useful on site š¤£
Absolutely, itās like driving a car, you are taught how to pass the driving test the experience and expertise comes later.
Having a dad In a trade does not qualify you to be useful on site
Having worked with him for few years it might.
How many years ago? Because thatās not how jobs work any more. Not to mention they specifically mentioned people with degrees. Why would someone who has spent 3 years and Ā£50k debt on a degree go and start dusting shelves in a department store and hope to work their way up?
Because you want a job and career. You and thousands of other people have that piece of paper that says youāve been to university. If itās the likes of a business management or media studies degree there arenāt the relevant jobs out there so youāll be waiting around forever for āyourā job. Now if you are a doctor, solicitor, architect or similar then thatās different, but then you also wouldnāt be posting on Reddit how difficult it is to get a job because youād have one.
Plenty of law, medicine, and architecture grads cannot get jobs at the moment. There arenāt even enough training places for any of them so most people canāt fully qualify and are stuck in limbo. We need to have age flairs on this sub, honestly. I donāt think older people really understand how dire everything is. Someone posted the other day that they were an experienced paralegal and gave it up to work in a bar because they earned more. Nobody is going and getting a degree and then working as a temp in a department store to āwork their way upā. They may as well at least go and earn a pittance in a slightly relevant field, and āgive the manager a firm handshake and stay there for fifty years and youāll end up as the CEO!ā isnāt how any of this works any more.
I did mechanical engineering back home, then here I would have needed to redo some exams to get it recognised, and I didn't have the kind of money they were asking. So I just improvised, not the best way in your eyes but it worked out quite well for me. Now in the process of getting a chartership in finance while working. It did beat staying around unemployed. We are talking 16 years ago, not yesterday but neither centuries ago. If I had to do it all again, I would do the same. If you work you can move up. If you are unemployed you stay still. If it doesn't work for you, obviously you do what makes you happy.
You want to look up past Tesco CEOs if you donāt think you can work your way up from shelf filler to CEO. I went from being a van boy (basically helping deliver white goods) to owning my own business at twenty one, no degree needed thank you. We donāt need age flairs, we can all tell who the entitled twenty somethings are. The majority of twenty years olds though arenāt posting on here because they are out there working and getting on with a career. Also the job market isnāt dire, more people have a job today than ever before and unemployment is still at a lower percentage rate than almost ever before.
And we can all tell who the out of touch boomers are. Nobody working as a shelf stacker today is going to be Tescos CEO. I genuinely donāt know how to break to you that the world has changed in the last 60 years. The job market is absolutely dire and young people are barely scraping enough together to survive, but sure, itās because theyāre all entitled. They arenāt buying houses because theyāre entitled, they arenāt having kids because theyāre entitled, they arenāt earning living wages because theyāre entitled. I left the country and make triple what the exact same job makes in the UK, how entitled of me. I should have just walked in there with a firm handshake and told them Iād man the fax machine for 20p per hour and then one day Iāll be CEO. The same nonsense every time and the same ridiculous nonsense out of date advice, like clockwork.
So no CEO of Tesco has ever started out as a shelf filler. My bad then, thank you for putting me right on that. Have a good day.
Feel free to show the class.
If it did happen, then I'd be an outlier anyway and most likely someone controlled by the rest of the board and used as a publicity op. On the whole C level executives are born upper or upper middles class, the stats are undeniable.
In a previous job we had a cleaner, she got noticed as she was really street smart and marketing for herself. Became receptionist, got put on training and became HR assistant. Then I left, from Linkdin seems she is now generalist. (Oh, 6 years ago as you are hung up on dates). I understand the frustration of having a degree everyone told you would open you all doors, maybe having debt cause of it and then you realize it gives you nothing. What many don't understand, apart from professions in which the degree is compulsory (like medicine or law), experience is king. Just cause one has passed exams on a subject, it doesn't mean they can do that thing in real life. Life is different from books and book exercises, very different. The ones that understand it usually find a job decently fast. The ones whose personality is the degree struggle more, cause they get hung up on getting "the job they studied for" from the start. If the door of your dream job is locked, get in from the back or from the window. Once you're in you course correct.
There are PLENTY of ābusiness managementā jobs out there, and usually graduate is the lowest position in the business from which to work up from. I do agree to an extent though, getting into a company is the priority rather than having the perfect role.
Exactly, once you're in 1- you get workplace experience, 2- you can get noticed, you become a known quantity, you are not a CV in a pile any more. You can look at internal transfers, training opportunities, networking. If nothing else being employed makes you a much more attractive candidate when looking again.
How is it a ācushyā job if it only pays Ā£35K?
Because Ā£35k if youāve just graduated is cushy.
Yh but the point is that shouldn't be considered cushy. 30k has been the standard grad scheme salary for years. There's been minimal progress. Then people get mad when these people point out this shitty situation.
Thank you!
That heavily depends on where you live. In London itās not much at all.
Itās not LondonJobs
Itās not LowStandardJobs either
āLow Standardā? Based on what, the wage of Ā£35k? I mean that heavily depends on where you live. Outside of London itās not too bad
They earn way more in the poorest states in the US. 35K is survival at best.
You are not in the US and you donāt have their tax or healthcare system. You canāt directly compare the two.
Switzerland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg have higher salaries, lower taxes and functional healthcare systems so youāre right, I donāt even need to go that far lol
Tell me you live in a privileged bubble without telling me you live in a privileged bubble.
The standards in the UK are really in the trenches if 35K is considered privileged. No wonder wages are stagnating if you have losers thinking 35K (before taxes) is some kind of jackpot. Literally dragging everyone down with them because they have no expectations from life.
This is true.
According to some of the people in the London sub that's poverty wages
Can we not move away from working class people trying to dunk on each other? Why do people feel the need to attack other working class people for trying to do soemthign that they think will improve their lives?
āDo an apprenticeshipā is the new āgo to universityā. I donāt think people realise that itās not young people being lazy and not wanting to work, itās that no matter what you do the wages are shit, and people are exhausted at being told to just take another three years of no pay to retrain.
I was talking to my uncle yesterday(he's just retired as a plasterer/roofer) explaining that I wish I'd done a plumbing course before uni like I had planned 16 years ago, he was blown away that my mam basically banned me from doing so and asked "why don't you just retrain now"... It took me a good 20 seconds for my brain to reboot and explain that I would literally starve to death if I retrained as there's no help for single 30 something men who live alone, the idea of living on an appretices wages(or being accepted as one with a law degree) just isn't feasible or realistic. He is gutted I didn't come to him a decade ago, so he could have trained me up and given me his business instead of just closing it... And doesn't understand me when I say, "That would have been an awesome thing to do. However, what about everyone else?" I don't think many of us want to live in this system, cronyism and nepotism running wild yet nothing decent for the vast majority of us. Literally, no matter how hard I try, I just can't seem to get a decent job, and since losing my job in Feb I've had a couple of interviews and that's it... The idea of retraining at this moment is so far away its comical.
I donāt think people realise how hard it is to survive on an apprentice wage if youāre not living at home with your parents. Itās not like āback in their dayā when it might cover rent. So you need parents who support doing an apprenticeship (many of whom have had it drilled into them that going to uni is the better thing to do), *and* are willing to support you until you qualify. Or you need to do a full time apprenticeship and somehow work a full time job on top to scrape by. This thread in particular has attracted a lot of much older people who genuinely donāt understand that the world has changed massively and young people are being shat on from every angle, while desperately trying to do the right thing.
Trade work is just as corrupt and soul destroying, full of cowboys and consultants having you register as Self Employed to avoid tax and skirting rules designed to keep people safe. Only with the added benefit of the work effort con that unless you've done 60 hours for no pay, its not hard graft enough.
If I may add, also plant drivers and crane operators are paid fairly well, and most hire companies pay for the training.
Hire companies definitely don't pay for training of people newly into operating plant
Just two examples that come to mind: P. Flannery and M. O' Brien Group. They both have apprenticeship schemes where they train people to drive various pieces of equipment. There are more. The fact you don't know about them doesn't mean they don't exist.
I work in construction and have had dealings with Flannerys. It's a box tick. All they care about is making money and if a driver ain't making them money they get booted off site.
Oh snap, i work in construction too, although not site based. They are one of my suppliers. The programme exists, again the fact you don't know about it doesn't mean it's not there. Same for quite a few other companies. If one wants to get in the industry and they are starting from 0, the ways are there. Obviously, apprenticeship programmes are partly government sponsored, so it's not charity, but it's still a way to get in the industry for someone who is passionate about it and wouldn't know how otherwise.
Iām a chippy and I looked into becoming a crane operator. The pay wasnāt as good as I expected
It gets better as you get more experienced and you drive bigger cranes. Not sure on the going pay for chippies, might be better than cranes. It's still a good alternative to a dead end minimum wage job. From crane operator you can do courses and go into H&S, other courses and become lifting manager. There are various opportunities depending on one's interests.
Itās variance of work as market changes. A chippy can do wardrobes in a house or first fix on a building site. When construction slows crane drivers only have larger projects to work for which can slow down work significantly.
Iād love to take on a trade.. but at 32 I highly doubt Iām in that much demand even after completing training in a specific trade
Age has nothing to do with it. Just start on as a labourer or a trades mate and learn as much as possible. Seen people doing it for 30 years and still be dog shit
Theres a trend that tradespeople are thick and if you donāt go to uni youāre a loser. This has worked out quite well for us thick losers tbh.
They're under a sink, not on a computer.
Can tradespeople use computers? (sorry, couldn't resit).
In my experience, yes. Can you use their tools? š¤£
Haha! I can't rewire a plug.
š¤£
Thatās a fantastic reply, and thatās why they need tradesmen because they donāt have a clue how to use their tools. But your self employed plumber will be invoicing, ordering and doing their VAT return and SA all on a computer. How does that degree work for the graduates now?
To be fair using a computer is just a basic life skill and is not even remotely equivalent to having a degree. How many tradesmen can do a non trade professional job? Almost none. How many tradesmen earn more than an accountant or engineer over the course of their career? Again almost none.
I think there is space for both, people have different skills and different interests and attitudes. The problem is when one is seen as better than the other, when some jobs are looked down upon. You cannot live without doctors, you cannot live without brickies or sparkies. Everyone has their importance (maybe with the exceptions of estate agents š¤£).
Using a computer like that is an incredibly basic life skill. How many tradesmen would be able to work as software engineers? Meanwhile I do the vast majority of the tradey work I need myself. There's no need to feel insecure or like it's a competition.
The trade āskillsā you are using will also be at a very basic level. Iām guessing you arenāt re-wiring your house, fitting new windows, putting up an extension or new roof, possibly not fitting a gas boiler either. How many software engineers could do that?
That's my point, you said you do basic computer work, I said I do basic 'tradey' work. This isn't a competition and you don't need to feel insecure or try to put anyone else down. Tradies have their value, office workers have their value, neither is better than the other.
Carpenter and joiner here, bought a cnc machine, learnt to draw in cad, then put that into the cam program and do a production run on the machine, went on a course for Excel years ago, I've written workbooks for mates whom have their own companies, these help them track cost and I can analyse their workflows etc. Mrs works in an office, her workmates struggle putting ikea furniture together, I can cut roofs on or build a bar. Still, looking to go office now as everything fucking aches, 59 isn't a joke.
Do agree that more people should look at trades. Too many people are funneled into the school, to sixth form, to degree pipeline, which spits them out in their early-mid 20s into a shit job market with a piece of paper, no experience and a load of debt. Trades are a much better deal by comparison. It can end up as a "posh" job as well. I learned a trade, did a part-time degree once I'd settled on it as a career, and now I'm on the technical side. Moving from practical to technical is really sought after as well.
Its more than likely down to there always being work available in the sector and due to an inability to outsource it abroad. I wouldnt call an office job posh work if I had to guess I'd say around 90% of office workers earn less than tradies hell there are a fair few labourers that make 50k pushing brushes and lumping shit about.
People here are quite pro āthe tradesā but aside from finding an apprenticeship, there isnāt much to discuss about them. Career progression is more straightforward and navigating social issues isnāt really so much of an issue in that line of work.
I agree that trades are a good business to get into. But I respectfully disagree with two major premises in this post: * that trades are not mentioned here. I think they're frequently mentioned, not least because experienced boiler engineers, qualified electricians, and experienced plumbers shall always be demand. * that doing office work is "posh", or that the trades are not. I agree that it is hard to eradicate the class system (and for full disclosure I would generally be regarded as middle-class) but I don't think we should be trying to reinforce this ideology. Working class folks can work in an office, and middle-class folks can do practical work with their hands.
Reddit is 90% soft hands middle class Tarquin types. They don't do manual labour but they also don't think people who do should be payed as much as they are.
Posh people jobs. Good to see weāve not moved beyond the class system in this country.
I often get the impression that many people in the trades think that everyone in office work is sneering at them for some reason. In reality no one cares.
Read some of these replies! Trades are looked down on.
I can see one post of a guy being a dick. Far more of the posts were trades people having a go at people who work in an office. It reads like a lot of people have some insecurities about their work when very few people actually care.
If youāre a wanker, you look down on them. No one should look down on anyone for earning an honest living.
posh people jobs but most earn less than a competent tradesman, work that one out
Want to make a post dispelling myths about the 'trades', but then calls all office jobs 'posh jobs' haha. Not off to a great start there.
I didnāt call all office jobs posh jobs. I said āposh people jobs and office workā Iām not trying to dispel any myths, it was merely an observation that there are very few (if any) posts about trade work (or lack of)
Absolutely worth it. Browse this sub for a few weeks and you'll see countless threads of people struggling to find work or security or having bad conditions etc and it's so easy to believe that thats the norm but honestly I don't relate to any of that. I left school into an apprenticeship, I'm now 30 and have always had secure employment, in strong unionised environments where I've had good progression and good pay. I've got a HND qualification that was paid for by one of my employers so no student debts and never needed to sacrifice on education. Really the best of both worlds.
Iāve never had any issues beings chippy nearly 30 been doing it since school. I earn far more than most of the people I know in these office jobs. Being self employed, you can get a real good work life balance, work as much of as little as you need to. If you take pride in what you do youāll never have issues. Most people on here want to wfh thatās a big factor. I did think about changing careers 1-2 years ago, but this sub has made me so glad I havenāt.
How much does your average trades person actually make?
I make Ā£35k Thatās for a piss easy 36 hour working week, 32 days annual leave plus bank holidays, cash healthcare plan, decent pension 5% employee 10% employer, Pick up my own jobs if I need to make extra but Iām generally happy enough with the ok wage, great work life balance as my kids are still young. If I was willing to do the long days / heavy graft Iād be able to make make considerably more but that wouldnāt quite fit in with my life at the minute Iām not thick, but was never really one for school work etc, learning my trade was one of the best things Iāve ever done to be honest
Depends where you work in the country. If youāre employed, sub contract to a builder or fully self employed. Im London based and regularly take home 1k+ a week doing 8-3:30ish subbing. More if Iām doing my own jobs. Its great because you can work longer days or weekends aswell if you want to bump up your wage, I also like to travel so I work as much as possible to give me freedom to take more than 28 days off a year lol. Out of London is definitely less, but if youāre good thereās more money to be made than people realise.
South east, I have chippies on six figures.
Wow, that sounds like a hell of a lot. What sort of work are they doing?
Joists, trusses, 1st&2nd fix, wardrobes, kitchens - everything and anything. So much money to be made at present. If you can get recommendations and do a little job after a days work all the better. Eg hours job after work twice a week can charge Ā£75 - Ā£100 each. Thatās Ā£10k a year.
I'd love to work in trade honestly, but since I can't drive and can't learn, unless I found a company who would drive me everywhere - I can't go into it
Training courses are usually not free except sometimes for those on unemployment programs. That being said, I vastly prefer working outdoors. I've done an office job, and I've done WFH. Much prefered my Regular Show type job in park maintenance. Didn't pay as well but it was easier to work more hours, didn't follow me home, was physically healthy and low stress mentally. Also working in the cold really isn't that bad, you get PPE, company is required to give your thermals in winter and waterproofs. What's worse? Summer heatwaves. You can warm up by working in the cold, but in summer, there is no escape
Because there are no unified professional qualifications for trades.Ā
Yep all I see is. "Wfh 4 days a week, can't believe they want me in the office 1 dayš¤" or "why doesn't everyone cycle to work?" Or "the job market is bad, I applied for 100 jobs and no replies" Personally, I think A.I will take 50% of I.t jobs in the next 10 years. ( by that I mean there will still be those office jobs but with the power of A.I it will take 1 person to do 2 persons work) If I was in any kind of office job, I'd start learning basic trade skills. Or electrical/mechanical. Oh and sorry my English is bad, I'm a school drop out, heating and ventilation engineer.
I canāt get AI to write my queries in a way that is consistently correct, never the less saving enough time itās actually beneficial. Youāre 10 years before AI takes muh job is pretty far away from reality
Presume you mean SQL queries? Its hilarious just how bad the answers given are a lot of the time and man does it love unnecessary subqueries
Somehow it does this on excel as well, incredible how you can ask AI a question being incredibly specific and it canāt even find the best solution, never mind executing the solution correctly. Itās gonna take my job though for sure
Just think of how fast technology is growing and improving. Even think 5 years of A.I development, the next 10 years will be a much bigger jump than 2x
Cool thanks, not worried
You need to learn how to prompt correctly for AI.
I think I do but happy to hear any advice you have
Heaven forbid people want to work from home when theyāre in a job where being office-based has few benefits
For real, people make it look like wfh is some kind of luxury when itās a basic benefit if you work from an office lol
They could pay you to stand in an empty field if they wanted to, if they pay your salary and want you inā¦ you gotta go in
>Personally, I think A.I will take 50% of I.t jobs in the next 10 years. What are you basing this on?
Based on 'trust me bro'
> Personally, I think A.I will take 50% of I.t jobs in the next 10 years. ( by that I mean there will still be those office jobs but with the power of A.I it will take 1 person to do 2 persons work) They won't.
Probably because if youāre literate and can access the internet you wonāt be working in trades.
And itās this attitude why people donāt go in to it. If youāre literate and can use a computer and know construction youāll be a millionaire.
Should have added a sarcasm tag for the slow ones at the back.
Seeing what you've created, changing people's lives, making people happy etc are not limited to trades. I don't know where this attitude comes from that somehow trade work is more worthy than everything else but it gets pretty tiring when people go on about it.
I tried trade jobs but itās brutal for women and then you just get called stupid for even trying
I just work in a shop. I'm not qualified to talk to people about their issues, but my god, my customers are always divulging stuff to me and telling me their feelings. I'm not always ready for it, but I'm a compassionate ear for them (even though I've got my own stuff going on in my life). My coworkers even get me to go on the till when they know certain customers are in so I can "squeeze information" out of them that they want to know, because everyone just offloads to me. I don't love this aspect at all (as conversation sometimes gets heavy), but I love that my customers feel I'm a safe-space. I get a lot of tradespeople in and they pretty much all tell me they hate their jobs (some of them running their own successful businesses). I'm saying I get told some deep feelings from them about their work. Think there's a lack of support in their work community to be open about mental and physical health. Don't think I'll be complaining about my shitty shop job to a tradesman again. Seems like a tough gig and you're right, they absolutely do life-changing work and don't get recognised for that. I'm absolutely going to get that across to them in future when these workers come in and are feeling bleak.
Electrician here - simply put - Iāve never been busier. What Iāve seen in the last 2-3 years is that the Skills shortage is starting to make itself known in certain areas. For instance in my area the factories canāt get hold of - or keep - electricians / fitters and are constantly advertising and getting nowhere - then re-advertising. The problem in my opinion is that Schools are too focused on making success a paper based reality. Get this qualification and get that one to be successful, go to university and get a degree or 2 and youāll be successful - then those same people look down on us thinking we make little to no money with our ālack of paper qualificationsā š¤¦š¼āāļø On the other side of the coin - theres Never a shortage of people Wanting a job done for nothing š
Some of the people in this sub are incredibly entitled. They arenāt willing to do an honest days work for fair pay. They want to wfh, no commute, not get their hands dirty. I feel like a boomer saying this but fewer and fewer people are willing to put in a dayās graft. Trades are well paid, especially if you have exceptional skill but you have to get out of bed in the morning and get to the job, rain or shine.
Touched some nerves clearly
Are you suggesting that if you work from home you can't be doing an honest day's work?
You don't need to be so insecure mate. If I can get paid better for working from home and not destroying my body then I'd consider that a good thing.
When work starts paying properly again, then you can mention this honest days graft stuff. Until then you don't get to complain. Make work pay properly again, improve conditions and these work shortages will go away. It's that simple however what would you expect from a vindictive crab mentality society
Worker shortages go away when people stop getting paid not to work. Those days are coming, thankfully.
100% All the grafters are running their own gangs, often with older guys working for them whoāll snort all their pay over the weekend and no show on a Monday.
lol been one of those guys
The hard part is getting an apprenticeship in these. It really is a friend's and family thing for taking on apprenticeships.
Itās not. The problem lays with a huge underinvestment in colleges and tuition. We should be paying the good trades coming to retirement good money to pass their skills on. Too much focus on uni lecturers and not enough on these guys.
Almost no one cares about college qualifications other than box ticking. Just doing the qualification will not get you employed.
You have to be in college to get an apprenticeship. It doesnāt guarantee future employment but it teaches you the basics and gets you ahead of the game whilst youāre young.
Iām a reasonably well off white collar whoās refurbing my whole house. Iāve had renewed respect for trades and donāt understand why youngsters donāt want to get involved. Iāve used plumbers, sparkies, roofers, scaffolders, plasterers and painters/decorators. A lot of them arenāt cheap. They all tell me they could have 365 days a year work if they wanted it. But they also tell me that youngsters they take on are unreliable or canāt hack the physical nature of the workā¦..
>. Iāve had renewed respect for trades and donāt understand why youngsters donāt want to get involved. No work from home, physically demanding, getting hands dirty, blisteringly hot in the summer, freezing in the winter, and soaking wet any other time of the year. I'm generalising but most kids want to roll out of bed 2 minutes before they are due to work, turn on a computer, work in their pyjamas for 3 or 4 hours a day and collect 40 grand a year for doing so. At the manufacturing plant I work in, we are desperate for machine techs. Over the last 4 months I have seen 5 people in their 20's come and go. The reasons they don't last is always . didn't realise how hard it is to wake up early enough to start work at 6am and too physically demanding they are too worn out to do a full week. We have people in their 60's doing this job and young men in their so called prime can't keep up ffs.
>I'm generalising but most kids want to roll out of bed 2 minutes before they are due to work, turn on a computer, work in their pyjamas for 3 or 4 hours a day and collect 40 grand a year for doing so. Are you saying you wouldn't like to do this, or that it's somehow worse than what you're doing? Young people are just more motivated to find work that respects them & their time. I used to work full-time in-office, getting up at 5:30-6 every day. Now I WFH 4 days a week. Not only do I get paid way more than I did when I was in the office, I also save around Ā£2500 a year on commute costs. I can get housework done on my lunch break. I get better sleep than I ever have before, and I get more time with my family. Why do you seem to think it's wrong for young people to want that? I'm 30, I've worked full time in office for nearly a decade before getting this current job. I will never go full-time in-office again. If your company wants to hire more machine techs, maybe they'll have to increase the pay, benefits, reduce working hours, or make other concessions to make the job actually appealing to people.
In all honesty working from home doesn't appeal to me in the slightest and neither does sitting behind a desk all day. I don't mind my job, for the most part I like the team that I'm a part of, we have a good laugh and if one of us is struggling we can see that and we offer to help each other without needing to he asked to. It's easy to say companies should make jobs more appealing, but some industries have to run 24/7, reducing hours will require more staff and overall pay for the individual. Or charging the customer more money for the product which will make things more expensive for the end consumer. The pay is representative for the area, we have a subsided canteen, free on site parking, and a great sick pay scheme with 16 weeks full pay and 16 weeks half pay (after 1 full year of service), and 250 hours a year annual leave on top of 2 small factory shutdowns, and a slightly higher than government minimum pension contribution. Other benefits include gym membership, access to various mental health care services and membership to the local Costco.
The trade people are all off working hard enjoying their day and so not living on reddit like the rest of usā¦ Joking aside I totally agree. I miss the feeling of having built something with my hands. So satisfying. I think iād go plumbing if I went that route. Seem to be quite a few plumbers doing well for themselves round me.
Because the people who post on here don't want an actual job. They want to 'work' from home I.e sit on their sofa all day watching TV and playing games. I know this because half the people I know do this. Sit playing games all day with each other.. sending a few emails and still complain about 'work' in the group chat
Iāve been 100% WFH since 2020; at what point can I start sitting on my sofa all day?
Alright grandad, let's put you back in your box. That's enough about how everything was better back in your day.
I'm 30 just don't have a soft life
30 but with 100% boomer craic
Okay so everyone works from home... Why fixes things and makes sure the country keeps going?
When did I say everyone should work from home or knock trades people in any way? I took the piss because you attacked everyone who work from home with the old boomer assumption that everyone is dossing.
You don't need to feel so insecure.
I feel like im best of both worlds, i work in hybrid sales apprenticeship within the HVAC industry Im still an apprentice learning construction working with site managers, civil engineers and quantity surveyors, So u can have both, but itās obvs not the same, i actually started my job journey doing plumbing then labouring, then realised i dont wanna do that for my whole life so i left, done retail then warehousing then eventually its lead to where i am now, What im tryna advise to people is try it all, u may like trade work u may not, dont knock things till u try it, Got huge respect for people that work as plumbers,bricklayers,labouring,electrician,hvac installing, etc because its hard graft, that guys that only done cushy jobs wont understand
I'm in a trade, rebuilding turbos and automatic gearboxs also mapping, worked for one of the big 3 German car brands as a mechanical engineer, I'm happy doing what I'm doing now own boss using my hands and mind 8-5 6 days a week and employ some good guys and girls now.
Problem with them courses are they create people who think they know what theyāre doing and end up getting jobs for clients and fucking there house up etc Do the proper way go to College and get a apprenticeship on the trade you desire like mostš
I'd love to! I've been working in tech (and have two degrees in fields I do not work in lol) and I got made redundant, so was looking into gardening, or something with my hands. But I can't find anything local really
Trade work is great for people who like to work with their hands and make a different firsthand! Iām crap at building and fixing things but that aspect really appeals to my ADHD, itās way better than sitting at a desk doing nothing all day.
Trade jobs are the ones where you'll never be out of work. It's also really satisfying being good at one of these trades. Some trades have it worse than others but you just pick one that suits you.
Donāt just think of trades working on building sites or in peopleās houses either. A lot of work that is done by people thought of as trade/ crafts is process monitoring these days. Not all day rate either. Ā£53k basic in the north. Career average salary pension, 8-3 most days, enhanced rate after that. 36 days leave and donāt work most bank holidays. Tools, PPE and vehicle provided by employer
Been in construction since leaving school , now 35 , various different sectors , now operating cranes on site ,havent earnt less than 62k for the last 5 years , last year was 76k , the early starts , long hours and weekends is what put people off too many young people now just wanna wfh or doss on a computer , hell id do it too if the money was better and the jobs were plentiful , but like op said there are so many office workers looking for employment... you wil never be out of work in the trades / constrcction
Operating cranes sounds awesome tbh
Doss on a computer? Have you tried sitting in front of one for 10 hours a day š
What's with all the tradies on here whining about people working from home using computers š just screams insecurity.