NO One wants to be a plumber??

[ShaunCorbs]

well, I hope the shortage continues..
I went to 2 firms a while back around here that were looking for guys for all aspects of plumbing.
one offered me £8/hour and the other £10/hour.
cant work for that.

you fully qualified?

 

[GQuigley67]

I wouldn't work for any less than £15 per hour, maybe £14 if books in and a van.

Not heard of anyone being paid any less around here(Glasgow)

£10 for a qualified plumber! I pay my labourers 9.50

 

[Jay The Plumber]

you fully qualified?

OFTEC and G3.. never got C&G etc

 

[hammers4spanner]

Quite often get lads round here working for 10 an hour plumbing.

 

[chris watkins]

i have just finished my 4 year apprenticeship having started it at just turned 16 and left school. wasnt 100% sure it was what i wanted to do, but manged to get a position with a good company and havent looked back since! definitely the best thing ive ever done! i find it really interesting but then do see other apprentices that cant be asked and like you say are just always on phones ect. I can see alot of these people doing just for something to do, but there are still a few like myself who are keen and passionate about the trade, cheers!

That was me (& I guess a few others on here) 35years ago, perhaps not with the distraction of a phone but there were other things :smile5:

Perhaps the difference back then was being a plumber carried a modicum of respect & it did required the apprenticeship to achieve that status.

Good luck Gb with your future career, if you are the best at what you do you tend to survive & prosper, one things for sure it will always keep your brain active which can't be said of the Aldi or the call centre brigade.

 

[billybob150811]

my mate who fits the rads is on holiday and I got a new guy for two weeks on the third day he says he,s going to work for a ground works firm as its more money ! and hes proably right

 

[AlexGas]

I wonna be a pilot... Wow... Or maybe not, it's a bloody long drop up there... :bat:

 

[MarkAqua]

I wish I had not gone into pipe fitting / welding. I am from Yorkshire originally, now living in Essex, where my wife is from. Her family had such a better way of life than we did and my dad had a fantastic job, we never went without holiday Etc, but whilst i was 10 we were holidaying in France and they were out in there own Villa in Florida. He retired 20 years ago as a stockbrokers clerk on 70k a year. no qualifications, no A levels Etc, and his bonus was normally 80-100% of his salary.

I'm glad i have settled down here, my kids have a potential fantastic way of life and im 40 mins from the city

 

[AlexGas]

As they say - grass is always greener on the other side...

 

[MarkAqua]

As they say - grass is always greener on the other side...

Exactly. Trouble is, now we are looking at moving further North to get a much bigger house for our money? cant win.

 

[AlexGas]

If that's what you want, go for it! Good luck with the move.

 

[gasmanrob]

I wonna be a pilot... Wow... Or maybe not, it's a bloody long drop up there... :bat:

It's not the falling the bothers me it's the stopping so suddenly

 

[student plumber]

The PlayStation generation (generally) don't want to do anything that you can do if you can do it bet ter in a game.

Also I think they've realised they're not going to get that 50k a year.

 

[Ric2013]

As a member of the Playstation generation, or at least the N64 generation, I can honestly say that you may be right generally, but I could make similar generalisations about your generation, and you might not appreciate it. I'm sure you don't mean to cause offence, but I'm finding it really hard not to take it.

My point is that that this sort of talk just makes whoever is being generalised think: Two Fingers!

Imagine starting a sentence with 'Black people (generally)...'. Can you see where I am coming from?

 

[Ric2013]

He retired 20 years ago as a stockbrokers clerk on 70k a year. no qualifications, no A levels Etc, and his bonus was normally 80-100% of his salary.

Don't worry...come the revolution... 🙂

 

[Dave500]

It took a while for me to get into plumbing (at age 24 and still on my apprenticeship) but as many have said why work at a few £ an hour when your 16 when you can go to a supermarket and get double the wage. Looking back I should of got into the industry earlier but being 18 and on double what I'm on now its hard to think why anyone else would if they really didn't want to get into plumbing.

 

[student plumber]

As a member of the Playstation generation, or at least the N64 generation, I can honestly say that you may be right generally, but I could make similar generalisations about your generation, and you might not appreciate it. I'm sure you don't mean to cause offence, but I'm finding it really hard not to take it.

My point is that that this sort of talk just makes whoever is being generalised think: Two Fingers!

Imagine starting a sentence with 'Black people (generally)...'. Can you see where I am coming from?

None taken, I know people who have made comments about my generation before and they had been right and wrong.

But I was making a generalisation concerning some of the students I met at college.
I could have stated that this was based on personal experiences and not just something I read in the paper; for which I apologise for any offence caused.
It was like 16, 17, and maybe 18 year olds who behaving like they don't want to know.

Throwing bits of pipe, pens or anything else about the workshop; or sword fights with lengths of copper pipe 4 or 5 feet long.
Constantly on mobiles in class/workshop, no matter how many times told to put them away; going off topic, talking amongst themselves, making weird noises and no they did not have an involuntary response condition.
Going to class without course book, paper pad, pen or anything, then saying "I didn't know what we were doing I thought we were in workshop"; so why did they turn up in class at the same day and time as they have done for weeks.
Going to morning / lunch / afternoon break and not coming back for rest of the day because what they were doing was "boring".
All students were told how important maths are and a number of examples were given, including some of personal experience.
But they walk out of a class because they can't understand the tutor (neither could anyone), but she was writing everything down correctly, I followed it and learnt something (I have always had bad maths so took the opportunity offered), but it was to difficult for them.
Turning up for maths and there is no tutor, and instead of going to library and studying or finding a maths tutor and asking for some work they close blinds, turn off lights, use class PC and large screen and put a film on, after messing about and swearing; there were a number of students who were trying to study but ended up leaving that lesson.
There were teenage students on a health course who caused so much disruption in maths the tutor was regularly in tears and ended up leaving the college.

I made a complaint and the head of maths was telling me about the problems they are having.

From what I saw at college of those who were early twenties or younger (whose ages I could identify), there were some but not all who did not seem that interested, from my personal experience they were generally not interested.
Even the tutor stopped giving out homework because not many students were bothering to do it.

And I'm not saying where this college is.

 

[Phil]

Sounds more or less the same as my college 20 years ago, it will never change.

 

[Ric2013]

Sounds more or less the same as my college 20 years ago, it will never change.

Wow. Sounds bad. I must be luckier than I thought at my college then. Before I enrolled on my course at Hyffoddiant Ceredigion Training, the first thing the head of plumbing did was sit me down and try to find out what I expected to get from plumbing - and what were my salary expectations. Once he was satisfied that I had a general interest, he managed to persuade me to study there.

Because the college is not trying to get people onto the course that aren't actually interested or for whom the course would not be suitable, there are only 5 of us in our year and the course faces an uncertain future in the long term. Ironic that a college that is actually acting in the interests of its students is seen as more of a failure than one that is happy to take on people that shouldn't be there at all.

If we are left to our own devices, we do tend to chat amongst ourselves, but usually we end up having debates on the Water Regulations or on what the distinction between a pressure reducing valve and an RPZ valve is, so we are rarely far off-topic. In practical lessions, though we do have official break times, we are allowed to leave at will as we always come back. Most of us are on apprenticeships and are keen to qualify so as to get a higher wage once we have done so.

There are exceptions (in the year above mine), but I have never seen any serious horseplay on anything like the scale you describe above.

I must say I felt that this was what I expected (hoped) university would be like, though my experience at university (University of Kent at Canterbury) was somewhat different and I did feel people taking a strong interest in the course was more the exception than the rule, but I suppose that is what you get for trying to send 50% of people to university. Still, it no doubt reduces the unemployment statistics.

 

[student plumber]

Wow. Sounds bad. I must be luckier than I thought at my college then. Before I enrolled on my course at Hyffoddiant Ceredigion Training, the first thing the head of plumbing did was sit me down and try to find out what I expected to get from plumbing - and what were my salary expectations. Once he was satisfied that I had a general interest, he managed to persuade me to study there.

Because the college is not trying to get people onto the course that aren't actually interested or for whom the course would not be suitable, there are only 5 of us in our year and the course faces an uncertain future in the long term. Ironic that a college that is actually acting in the interests of its students is seen as more of a failure than one that is happy to take on people that shouldn't be there at all.

If we are left to our own devices, we do tend to chat amongst ourselves, but usually we end up having debates on the Water Regulations or on what the distinction between a pressure reducing valve and an RPZ valve is, so we are rarely far off-topic. In practical lessions, though we do have official break times, we are allowed to leave at will as we always come back. Most of us are on apprenticeships and are keen to qualify so as to get a higher wage once we have done so.

There are exceptions (in the year above mine), but I have never seen any serious horseplay on anything like the scale you describe above.

I must say I felt that this was what I expected (hoped) university would be like, though my experience at university (University of Kent at Canterbury) was somewhat different and I did feel people taking a strong interest in the course was more the exception than the rule, but I suppose that is what you get for trying to send 50% of people to university. Still, it no doubt reduces the unemployment statistics.

There were about 30 students split into two classes and each had one tutor.
About 6 students had gone, jumped or pushed; there were other incidents but you get the idea.
A lot of the incidents in workshop happened when tutor was somewhere else teaching.

Also,
I did have a part time job night cleaning a sports centre where I worked harder than most of the migrant workers; and find it insulting when I hear British bosses say "British workers won't do dirty jobs"