Hammering It Home!

I had a conversation earlier regarding training and rates of pay for this industry in general. During that conversation I was trying to highlight the disparity that we have with other industries that operate in a similar vein, but often much cleaner than what we do and often with much less knowledge than we are expected to have.

What you have to remember in this equation is that there is NO recognised qualification for domestic appliance servicing other than a few NVQ’s which are, let’s face it, not exactly highly regarded. The only qualification that means squat in this industry is a CORGI ticket and that’s the only one that will earn an engineer more as a paid employee. Why, simple, it’s because that is required by law to service a gas product that’s why. Anything else, experience means more than a raft of paper that says your’re “qualified”.

But anyway, just to show how bad the situation is browse the following examples taken from Learn Direct and see what career path you would take as a school or college leaver.

Service Engineer : Domestic Appliance

New entrants can start at around £10,000.
Experienced engineers can earn £16,000.
Highly skilled and experienced service engineers can earn £25,000 upwards.

They might also get overtime and on-call payments.

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Welder

The annual income section is intended as a guideline only. Salary rates for welders can vary widely depending on the responsibilities, overtime rates and shift allowances.

Income starts at around £12,000 for trainees or apprentices.
A newly-qualified welder may earn £18,000.
Skilled, specialist welders can earn up to £40,000.

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Plumber

Trainee plumbers earn between £12,000 and £15,000 a year.
Qualified plumbers earn around £18,500 a year.
Experienced plumbers can earn from £22,500 upwards a year.

Self-employed plumbers may have higher earnings.

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Satellite Systems Technician

New entrants can expect around £12,000 a year.
Experienced technicians may be able to earn £20,000 or more.
A skilled systems planner and installer can earn over £25,000.

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Engineer : Electronics

Graduates start at around £18,000 a year.
Experienced electronics engineers earn around £35,000.
The average income for qualified chartered electronics engineers is £45,000.

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Technician : Telecommunications

New technicians start at around £12,000 a year.
On completion of training they can earn around £15,000.
Experienced telecommunications technicians earn up to £30,000.

So, as you can see our industry isn’t exactly a shining beacon when it comes to salaries and then add in the conditions as well and it’s not exactly an appealing career choice is it?

I guess though that from this I have learned that we are not really engineers although commonly reffered to as such, but we are more like field service technicians, with many, many skills and a great deal of knowledge. We also have to deal with a far greater range of product than many other industries and yet recieve less training.

So in light of the other threads that intertwine with this phenomena what you have to conclude is that there is no “new blood” into the industry as the rewards just aren’t there. There are few opportunities for advancement within the industry on the whole either so its a dead-end career really with the only possible move for many being to become self-employed. A theory proved by the fact that I’d bet that’s how most of us started out, or our predecessors did.

Food for thought.

K.