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The figures explaining how much Plumbers can earn is often talked about in the papers. The lack of Plumbers in the UK has led to salaries of 30-70k p.a. being exhibited. Is this really a fib – or is this in fact accurate? For the competent and correctly skilled person, this level of salary is realistic. In fact, earnings in excess of 70 – 100k p.a. are achievable – but that is solely for those who work within the self-employed market-place, rather than those who work within established employment routes.

If you enter the traditional work environment, primarily working for an established employer, then working hours of Monday to Friday, 9am to 6pm are standard. Furthermore from a UK employer, the usual perks are holiday pay and sickness allowance, as well as salaries of between 15k and 30k p.a. Whilst the ability to earn more than through normal means exists, the self-employed plumber usually has to consider working longer hours. This is clear when self employed plumbers have to work evenings and weekends, where their domestic clients are working during the day.

Also there is the factor of self-employment and whether it goes with some people more than others. Equally there is a need to manage good ‘business sense’, with items such as advertising & marketing factors as well as correctly assessing your own hourly rate. Similarly, to cover additional elements such as legal and accountancy fees and materials and transport, will require the planning of most self-employed people. While these can mount up, (although they should always be a very small proportion of your earnings,) so can the benefits received. And the downsides are nearly always outweighed by the proceeds!

Often customary work from employers attracts Student Entrants especially if it meets their needs training in working knowledge and experience. On the other hand, the Self Employed Entrant needs to increase their list plumbing credentials as soon as possible. That said the vast majority of self-employed plumbers appear to favour the ‘domestic’ instead of the commercial market. (Not all of them, but the main do!)

There does appear to be some union between certification relating to each path of Plumbing education and hence the industry. A key debate however comes into play when considering the issue of NVQ’s (SVQ’s in Scotland.)

At first, the Student Entrant does appear to depend much more on the NVQ structure than the Self Employed Entrant. In trying to meet their client’s needs many Self Employed Entrants will employ a wider range of qualifications. Certainly, the self-employed person needs to rapidly gain the key domestic-centred qualifications that will satisfy their typical household-based clients. The Student Entrant will often carry on their studies in the workplace under an apprenticeship where the NVQ element can be assessed. Due to the cost effectiveness of this study the Student Entrant can make strong savings from the outset. However, in relation to the Student Entrant the Self Employed Entrant will gain certifications faster and therefore achieve substantial financial gains in the long term.

This shows the necessity of a clear careers discussion, covering the overall study and certification requirements alongside the required financial return. It is often the issue of 3 years in low-paid apprenticeship work, alongside going back to college that many adults having to look after their family and with say 20kp.a requirements find difficult. It should also be borne in mind that many young Student Entrants have their studies paid for them as part of their overall apprenticeships, whereas the self-employed student generally funds the course themselves. The level of certification sought by the student drives the course structure and can result in costs of between 3k through to 10k+.

Student Entrants will in the main study at further-education colleges, the Self Employed student however has the option to consider the increased scope of private commercial colleges. Commercially oriented plumbing course companies will provide an established path of training which ultimately leads into recognised skill-sets and qualifications. Of a key opportunity is the ability to train out of hours – evening, part time and self study classes that allows Self Employed Entrants to continue training whilst continuing with their job and maintaining their financial situation. Considering so many options on hand it is clever to gather data from as many sources as one can. We have provided adverts and links from several to allow you to come back and review your options, so why not book mark this page (CTRL-D).

By going on added training programs many plumbing students seek to increase their ‘marketability’. Indeed it is through the added training provided that certification in areas such as Gas, Green Energy and Electrical can be gained. Forming part of the common domestic and commercial heating system, Plumbers have often opted for Gas Training.

With core subjects followed by NVQ’s, Gas Training is a thorough and exact training program. For those who trained as a plumber first and are now looking at extra skills this also offers many options for their on-going development. It could be said that the blend of training covering Plumbing/Gas training is better matched to the mature student. For the Mature Student the emphasis appears to be reducing the NVQ elements and focussing on the core subjects.

It is from this mix of training methods that the self-employed professional appears to benefit. The attraction is certainly the chance to gain a wider range of skill sets and earn money from them. The removal of any reliance of sub-contracting key skills of third parties definitely enhances the commercial package. Whilst sub-contracting can reduce the earning of a particular job perhaps more important is the deterioration of the value in a customer’s eye as they have to wait for jobs to be handled by others before completion of the overall task. To be fair the more talent a Plumber has in their own job then the more they have to offer their client base.

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

Copyright Scott Edwards 2009. Hop over to Plumbing and Heating Courses or Click HERE.

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The CompTIA A+ course has four specialist sections – you need to pass exams in 2 different areas to reach the level of competent in A+. For this reason, most training providers simply provide 2 of the training options. We consider that this isn’t enough – certainly you’ll have the qualification, but knowing about the others will give you a distinct advantage in the workplace, where you’ll need to know about all of them. So that’s why you deserve training in all four areas.

As well as being taught about building and fixing computers, trainees on an A+ training course will learn how to operate in antistatic conditions, how to fault find, to diagnose and to remotely access problems.

Should you fancy yourself as the kind of individual who works for a larger company – supporting, fixing and maintaining networks, build on A+ with Network+, or alternatively look at doing an MCSA or MCSE with Microsoft in order to have a more advanced experience of the way networks work.

The way in which your courseware is broken down for you is usually ignored by most students. How is the courseware broken down? What is the order and do you have a say in when you’ll get each part?

Usually, you will join a program requiring 1-3 years study and receive one element at a time until graduation. While this may sound logical on one level, consider this:

How would they react if you didn’t complete each and every module within the time limits imposed? And maybe you’ll find their order of completion doesn’t come as naturally as another different route may.

To provide the maximum security and flexibility, it’s normal for most trainees to have all their training materials (which they’ve now paid for) couriered out in one package, all at the beginning. It’s then your own choice how fast or slow and in what order you want to go.

IT has become amongst the most stimulating and innovative industries that you can get into right now. To be working on the cutting-edge of technology is to be a part of the massive changes affecting everyone who lives in the 21st century.

Technology, computers and connections through the web will dramatically shape the way we live our lives in the near future; overwhelmingly so.

And keep in mind that on average, the income of a person in the IT sector in Great Britain is a lot greater than the national average salary, which means you’ll most likely receive noticeably more as an IT specialist, than you’d expect to earn elsewhere.

There is a substantial national demand for trained and qualified IT technicians. In addition, as growth in the industry shows little sign of contracting, it looks like this will be the case for a good while yet.

We’d all like to believe that our jobs will always be secure and our work futures are protected, but the growing reality for the majority of jobs around Great Britain currently is that there is no security anymore.

Whereas a marketplace with high growth, where staff are in constant demand (as there is a growing shortage of fully trained people), creates the conditions for true job security.

Reviewing the Information Technology (IT) market, the most recent e-Skills survey brought to light an over 26 percent deficit in trained staff. Or, to put it differently, this shows that the United Kingdom can only locate three properly accredited workers for each 4 job positions existing now.

Appropriately skilled and commercially certified new employees are correspondingly at a resounding premium, and it’s estimated to remain so for many years longer.

It would be hard to imagine if a better time or market settings will exist for getting trained into this quickly expanding and blossoming business.

A service that several companies offer is a programme of Job Placement assistance. The service is put in place to help you get your first commercial position. However sometimes there is more emphasis than is necessary on this service, as it is actually not that hard for well qualified and focused men and women to find work in this industry – as there is such a shortage of trained staff.

Whatever you do, don’t wait till you have qualified before polishing up your CV. As soon as you start a course, mark down what you’re doing and place it on jobsites!

You may not have got to the stage where you’ve qualified when you will get your initial junior support role; but this can’t and won’t happen unless you’ve posted your CV on job sites.

Actually, a local IT focused recruitment consultant or service – who make their money when they’ve found you a job – will be more pro-active than a division of a training company. It also stands to reason that they’ll know the area and local employers better.

A big frustration of many training course providers is how hard trainees are prepared to work to get top marks in their exams, but how un-prepared that student is to get the role they’ve studied for. Don’t falter at the last fence.

(C) Scott Edwards 2009. Check out Graphic Design Portfolio or CLICK HERE.

These days, many workplaces couldn’t function properly if it weren’t for support workers fixing networks and computers, while advising users on a day to day basis. Because of the multifaceted levels of technology, growing numbers of trained staff are required to specialise in the various different areas we rely on.

A lot of training providers will only provide basic 9am till 6pm support (maybe a little earlier or later on certain days); not many go late into the evening (after 8-9pm) or cover weekends properly.

You’ll be waiting ages for an answer with email based support, and phone support is often to a call-centre which will just take down the issue and email it over to their technical team – who’ll call back sometime over the next 1-3 days, when it suits them. This is not a lot of use if you’re stuck with a particular problem and have a one hour time-slot in which to study.

If you look properly, you’ll find the top providers which provide their students direct-access support 24×7 – even in the middle of the night.

Look for a company that goes the extra mile. Only true round-the-clock 24×7 support provides the necessary backup.

An all too common mistake that we encounter all too often is to focus entirely on getting a qualification, and take their eye off where they want to get to. Colleges are brimming over with unaware students who took a course because it seemed fun – rather than what would get them an enjoyable career or job.

You may train for one year and then end up doing the job for 20 years. Don’t make the error of opting for what may seem to be an ‘interesting’ training program and then spend decades in an unrewarding career!

Be honest with yourself about how much you want to earn and how ambitious you are. Often, this changes what exams will be expected and what you can expect to give industry in return.

We’d recommend you seek advice from a professional advisor before making your final decision on some particular study program, so there’s little doubt that the specific package will give the skill-set required for your career choice.

Locating job security these days is very unusual. Businesses can drop us from the workforce at a moment’s notice – whenever it suits.

In times of increasing skills shortages coupled with high demand areas however, we often discover a newer brand of market-security; as fuelled by the constant growth conditions, companies just can’t get the staff required.

The IT skills-gap in the United Kingdom is standing at approximately twenty six percent, according to the most recent e-Skills survey. That means for each four job positions existing across computing, we have only 3 certified professionals to fulfil that role.

This single reality on its own underpins why the United Kingdom urgently requires considerably more people to get into the industry.

In reality, acquiring professional IT skills as you progress through the next year or two is probably the greatest career choice you could ever make.

Commercial certification is now, very visibly, taking over from the more academic tracks into IT – why then has this come about?

With university education costs spiralling out of control, along with the industry’s growing opinion that vendor-based training often has more relevance in the commercial field, there has been a great increase in Adobe, Microsoft, CISCO and CompTIA accredited training programmes that educate students at a much reduced cost in terms of money and time.

Vendor training works by honing in on the skills that are really needed (along with a relevant amount of background knowledge,) as opposed to covering masses of the background non-specific minutiae that academic courses can get bogged down in – to pad out the syllabus.

Just as the old advertisement said: ‘It does what it says on the tin’. Employers simply need to know where they have gaps, and then match up the appropriate exam numbers as a requirement. They’ll know then that all applicants can do what they need.

Copyright Scott Edwards 2009. Look at Careers-Advisor.co.uk/caradvk.html or Web Design Training.

It’s really great that you’ve already got this far! A fraction of the population enjoy their work and find it stimulating, but vast numbers just go off on one from time to time and do nothing. Because you’ve done research it’s likely that you’ve a personal interest in re-training, so even now you’re ahead of the game. Take your time now to find out more and then take action.

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

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

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

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

* Do you have the assurance that your chosen retraining is commercially viable, and will provide the facility to work right up to retirement age?

We would strongly recommend that your number one choice is the IT sector – everyone knows that it’s on the grow. It’s not all nerdy people looking at computer screens constantly – of course some IT jobs demand that, but the majority of roles are done by ordinary people who get on very well.

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

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

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

Always insist on a look at some courseware examples from any training college. You should ask for slide-shows, instructor-led videos and virtual practice lab’s for your new skills.

It’s folly to opt for on-line only training. Connection quality and reliability varies hugely across your average broadband company, ensure that you have access to disc based courseware (On CD or DVD).

Students will sometimes miss checking on a vitally important element – how their training provider divides up the courseware sections, and into what particular chunks.

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

What would their reaction be if you find it difficult to do each element at the proposed pace? Sometimes their preference of study order doesn’t come as naturally as some other structure would for you.

For maximum flexibility and safety, it’s not unusual for students to insist that all study materials are sent immediately, and not in a piecemeal fashion. It’s then up to you how fast or slow and in what order you want to go.

Trainees eager to start an Information Technology career often have no idea of which route to consider, or which area to get qualified in.

How can most of us possibly understand the day-to-day realities of any IT job if we’ve never been there? Maybe we have never met anyone who performs the role either.

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

* The sort of individual you reckon you are – the tasks that you enjoy doing, and on the other side of the coin – what you definitely don’t enjoy.

* Why it seems right getting involved with computing – is it to achieve a life-long goal like working from home maybe.

* Have you thought about job satisfaction vs salary?

* Understanding what typical career areas and markets are – plus how they’re different to each other.

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

To be honest, it’s obvious that the only real way to gain help on these areas will be via a meeting with an experienced advisor that has a background in IT (as well as the commercial needs.)

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

It’s a sad testimony to the sales skills of many companies, but a large percentage of students start out on programs that sound spectacular from the sales literature, but which gets us a career that doesn’t fulfil at all. Try talking to typical college students for a real eye-opener.

Make sure you investigate how you feel about earning potential, career development, and how ambitious you are. It’s vital to know what industry expects from you, what particular qualifications they want you to have and where you’ll pick-up experience from.

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

Copyright 2009 Scott Edwards. Check out Click HERE or Ecommerce Web Site Design.