Hi, I'm 27 full time employment (not electrical) I'm looking to learn a trade and hopefully one day go self employed.
I'm looking to become a domestic electrical installer, but not sure what I need to do e.g. courses I need to take and best way of getting experience once course completed.
Any advice for a complete beginner looking to become qualified would be brilliant.
You don't say what your current job is, or what qualifications you currently have?. Assuming nothing at all, the first place is a good grasp of Maths & Physics, as they are fundamental to circuit design calculations. If they have faded a bit since school, it could be worth checking for Maths top-up courses. To many think electrical work is just joining wires up and switching things on. But someone has to do the calculations to verify circuits comply with BS7671 and complete and sign the certificates. If you want to be self employed then calculating and signing off will be your responsibility. We get far to many questions on the forum off career-changes who theoretically think they are an electrician because they did a short wiring regulations course, but had no idea how to calculate the cable size for a summer house and hot tub at the bottom of a garden.
In order to self certify new circuits, or fuse boxes, that you install, you will need to be a member of one of the approved electrical trades bodies. So as Evans suggests browse the various websites, where you will find detail of the costs and qualifications required for membership, and the amount of Public Liability insurance you will need, and how frequently they will be expecting you to have you test meters calibrated & logged.
Once you have complied your list of city & guilds courses that bring you up to speed for your chosen trade body, you then need to go searching for colleges or training providers who run the courses. The best option for anyone still employed trying to career change is night classes at a local college. Remote on-line training is like trying to learn cooking on-line. You will also need to start costing up things like tools, meters, wiring regs books etc. etc.. It is not a cheap, short, easy path to take. Unless you already know someone in the trade, getting hands-on experience as an electrician is probably as difficult as getting hands-on experience as an F1 driver, or Astronaut. With modern employment law, most small companies cannot absorb the costs, liabilities, red-tape and time, associated with supervising unskilled workers, especially when their own jobs are on tight deadlines & budgets. So larger companies can be inundated with requests from wannabe electricians.
You could search for local companies with vacancies for labours / mates, to get some hands on experience. But despite what some training course adverts may say, there is not a big demand for unskilled, under qualified electricians. It is experience and qualifications that is in demand. And even that can be patchy as the trend seems to avoid employing full time workers at all. Just ship-in budget labour from Europe on short term contracts to complete projects, then release them once the job is done. What you want to do is not impossible, but it is not easy or quick. Research fully any potential training packages before spending your money, as numerous posts on here have people asking why they still can't get work after spending thousands on irrelevant courses. As with all jobs when looking for work or contracts, 90%+ is who you know not what you know. So making personal contact with local companies is typically better then bulk anonymous e-mails.
Doc H.
