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I chose to train for electrician because I was aiming for different career path. It’s good to be in a training so far I’d say. The tutors know about electricity all there is to know and it’s just being quite fun and interesting and evolving. In the center you’ve got all you need: the tools, you’ve got the equipment and again the lecturers have been showing you what to do and it’s great. I’m hoping to get into the industry at some point, I think I get the skills I need to do it, it’s just getting a confidence to go up there and do it.

My name is John Knox, I’m an electrical assessor for ERR limited. I’ve been doing this for probably 12 years, so I do have a bit of experience in it. I’m an electrician by trade, I have been doing electrical work since I’ve been 18 years old in various commercial, industrial and domestic installs.

The one thing we do get in this industry is courses which say that you can complete a course within a given time scale anywhere between 6 to maybe 10 or 12 weeks. These courses can be done but they would be normally for guys that may be working in within the industry who can then achieve the standard of what you need to have to be able to go out there in the real world.

If you’re coming off an office job, driving a lorry anything or driving a bus, you will have to put in that extra mile shall we say of looking for jobs, trying to get experience on site, you’ll have a lot of home study to do. Not everything can be done just straight in the center and you will be guaranteed to get through these things will take time, they won’t be achievable sometimes within these given weeks.

We do provide at ERR a lot of stuff for studying, there’s lots of videos, there’s lots of virtual reality stuff, which is absolutely brilliant to go in and actually study for. Everything is going to be down to your own time scale as well because everyone has a home life, but the sooner you do get into the center the sooner you can get start working and you start aiming towards a qualification.

Because there’s going to be more and more and more of these electrical cars coming out and electrical vehicles, we need more and more electricians doing that particular area. It’s going to open so many more doors the labour demand on electricians.

At the moment they reckon in every city there’s at least five to ten electricians short and in every village two electricians. There’s not one electrician, one electrician’s mate, one electrician’s labor that I know which is out of work; they’re all snowed under and busy. The pay scale is only going to go up; if you’re going industrial commercial I mean you can charge anywhere between 35 to 40 maybe 50 pound an hour.

My name’s Steve Baxter and I’m a plumbing tutor assessor here at ERR. I came into the plumbing industry at 15 years of age. I started out as a commercial pipefitters mate and then transferred over to an apprenticeship; when I was at the at the end of that I was 15. I did a four-year apprenticeship finished at 19, worked in the industry, mainly domestic plumbing. Through the 70s till the early 80s I become self-employed, I had my own business and I done that quite successfully.

Then latter years what I’ve tended to find is that as you wear out over the years with your knees and your back I was just looking for something like a roll, which is a bit easier on the body. So then I went to the teaching and started teaching at further education college, working with youngsters.

After a couple of years working with the youngsters, I come into working with adults, which is what I’m doing now at ERR.

What we try to do here is give them the skills to enable them to go into the industry and work alongside somebody to where they can actually then become better qualified and more experienced.

Most people after picking up enough experience do want to start their own business, go self-employed or even go self-employed in sub-contract with a main plumbing contractor.