NO One wants to be a plumber??

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plumb_know

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been advertising for plumbing apprenticeship for 3weeks with only 3 calls and only one person turn up for trial. guess no one wants to be a plumber any more??

advertised with college, Facebook, street life
 
Tesco and others pays more for much less work and plenty of the opposite sex and socialising as you work. Can't blame them for avoiding a trade.
 
Sorry to say best has hit the nail on the head short of pay them qualified rates you won't find many young that will be willing to graft and do hard work
 
SimonG said:
Lidl paying 10.60 an hour. Leave brain at the door.
Click to expand...

Exactly more than a qualified plumber round here gets a week less stress on body as well
 
At over £400 a 40 hour week at Lidl is good money.
No brains needed as said, no real hard work, no stress, no work van or tools expenses needed, no waiting on wages or other self employed business problems.
Joke is some of the people who work in these stores are grumpy and complain of the hard day they have.
 
Best said:
At over £400 a 40 hour week at Lidl is good money.
No brains needed as said, no real hard work, no stress, no work van or tools expenses needed, no waiting on wages or other self employed business problems.
Joke is some of the people who work in these stores are grumpy and complain of the hard day they have.
Click to expand...

But bet they don't fancy swapping for a week

Plumbers / heating eng are a dying bread that do it for the fun of it
 
Last apprentice we had spent first 16 weeks at college on health and safety.
I'm all for being safe but he wouldn't do anything I asked due to everything being life threatening !
That's how it sounded anyway.

Learning a trade is a long hard slog at low pay as we all know.
It's all I.T. Or sports science or tesco/lidl jobs now.

Who's going to fix my heating when I'm too old to do it anymore ?
 
Last Plumber said:
Last apprentice we had spent first 16 weeks at college on health and safety.
I'm all for being safe but he wouldn't do anything I asked due to everything being life threatening !
That's how it sounded anyway.

Learning a trade is a long hard slog at low pay as we all know.
It's all I.T. Or sports science or tesco/lidl jobs now.

Who's going to fix my heating when I'm too old to do it anymore ?
Click to expand...

By then depending on age it will be a man and a laptop

Plug in plug out
 
gassafe said:
Shortage of plumbers will only push the prices up so bring it on :p
Click to expand...

And then lower them due to all the 6 week wonders but then rise again due to there cock ups :D
 
There are lads out there whos parents would still bite yer hand off for an apprenticeship for their boy but unfortunately 70% of the yoof have been brainwashed by the system and the others need a kick up the ar se.
 
in my area I am aware of a plumber with C&G level 3 and a job left because Aldi were paying £.050p more per hour...
 
People call a plumber when things go wrong and then associate us with the problem. The attitude of why should I understand my heating system when I can call some monkey to fix it is common. There is more respect for the call centre staff when they invoke the boiler cover than for heating engineer who turns up. "Don't get technical just fix it", is said with no self awareness of what it reveals about the speaker's ignorance.
Add to that any self employed plumber works on the equivalent of a zero hours contract, include anti social hours and lack of paid holidays and plumbing will not stand out as a desirable job option.
Whilst we have a fragmented building industry nothing will change. Meanwhile make sure you're the most expensive monkey on the block.
 
We all moan about apprentices, they're clumsy, bone idol, always on the phone or loosing tools. I've never believed the press about the shortage of plumbers until recently. We can't even find bad ones at the minute and that's despite paying a good rate!

We've just taken on a 29year old labourer chequered past with demolition as his only real link to a trade. That said he has a great attitude and shows promise.

I think the hardest part is finding a youngen who wants to be a plumber rather then parents said they should do it.

Half the battle at the point is won. Then it's about keeping them interested getting tasks done given them there own project to do anything from hanging a single rad and piping it, to an airing cupboard etc. Letting them see their own development so they can see them selves learn and progress rather then passing us spanners and screwdrivers all day
 
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!
 
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.
 
Jay The Plumber said:
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.
Click to expand...

you fully qualified?
 
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
 
Gbplumber said:
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!
Click to expand...
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.
 
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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
 
I wonna be a pilot... Wow... Or maybe not, it's a bloody long drop up there... :bat:
 
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
 
If that's what you want, go for it! Good luck with the move.
 
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.
 
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?
 
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.
 
Ric2013 said:
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?
Click to expand...


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.
 
Sounds more or less the same as my college 20 years ago, it will never change.
 
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Phil said:
Sounds more or less the same as my college 20 years ago, it will never change.
Click to expand...

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.
 
Ric2013 said:
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.
Click to expand...


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"
 
student plumber said:
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.
Click to expand...

This is what it's like at my college now. Same as you I have trouble with my maths and I was glad to be put on the maths course along side the plumbing course and same as with you people were not turning up or being very late and rude when some of us wanted to learn. In the practical lessons we had a kid hit in the head with a 22mm pipe slice just before the summer break and the kid that threw it and the one that had been hit have both left the course due to being sacked and with a few more 16-20 year olds in line of being left behind so far that can not catch up or not willing to try and catch up. It's annoying as they are at the perfect age to get the most out of it and with the employers getting reduced labour costs and reduced course fees they should be trying to get into every course they can.
 
student plumber said:
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.
Click to expand...

I work in the community college as the workshop technician/teaching assistant/education dept. plumber and I recognise all of those behaviours you mention but the difference is that kind of thing only really happens in isolation, not as a general day to day thing. We still have the power to get rid of people like that. We do not get a chunk of money per student in our system and the college is not here to make a profit on this small island as it's not possible with out population demographic. The place is here to provide a community service.

I will say that when we get the schools links program students in it's usually a disappointment. Out of a group of ten we'll typically have 2 or 3 disruptive numpties (we fire them back to school) 2 or 3 who keep their heads down and get on but without really shining and then only 1 or 2 who you think "I'd take this lad on if I was employing."

The apprentices tend to be a whole lot better and genuinely try to make a go of it. They are the true volunteers so you'd hope they would be focused on the course.

Our best students are the mature students by far and are a pleasure to teach.
 
I am surprised the op had difficulty employing an apprentice - on average there are 41 applications for every plumbing apprenticeship and in the last month I have seen the following stories:

1. Female plumbing apprentice beats off 200 to land apprenticeship
2. Construction boss suggests 100 apply for 2 plumbing apprenticeships​

Government want 3million apprentices because over-supplying the construction jobs market leads to a massive drop in wages - the strategy has worked!

If 80% of the population are on low wages then the economy runs itself because inflation stays low. The following examples show how the government are stitching plumbers up:

1. Government pays large employers to take more apprentices than they need which over-supplies the industry driving down wages
2. Unapprenticed career changers such as ex-services enter industry, which increases competition for work with existing apprentices
3. Foreign labour consume the jobs of apprentices and stifle progression
4. Colleges now buy houses to provide refurbishing work experience for students because there is no demand from construction industry for their trainees. Training full-time students in old houses creates a false demand, which means that thousands of construction trainees who qualify, will face 'a lack of demand' from construction industry on graduation, because there was no real demand to start with​

Whatever happens, the above points are supported by research and this means that the future in the construction industry is likely to be low-paid at craft level - this is the opposite of what government are telling young people!
 
Dave500 said:
This is what it's like at my college now. Same as you I have trouble with my maths and I was glad to be put on the maths course along side the plumbing course and same as with you people were not turning up or being very late and rude when some of us wanted to learn. In the practical lessons we had a kid hit in the head with a 22mm pipe slice just before the summer break and the kid that threw it and the one that had been hit have both left the course due to being sacked and with a few more 16-20 year olds in line of being left behind so far that can not catch up or not willing to try and catch up. It's annoying as they are at the perfect age to get the most out of it and with the employers getting reduced labour costs and reduced course fees they should be trying to get into every course they can.
Click to expand...


At least we didn't have anyone hit in the head, someone had some formed pipes thrown at them but nothing serious I believe.

Incidentally, if anyone is looking for guaranteed work and earn tens of thousands a year, maths tutors are in demand. [SIC] :19: Now where have heard that before.

I was told they regularly have meetings to discuss how things are in their county wide teaching units; the first question is "got any maths tutors and can you spare any".
We had 5 tutors over the year.

Like you said they are at the perfect age, what bugged me was they paid tuppence and I paid about four figures.
I'm still not sure if they really wanted to do plumbing or not.
 
Interesting thread, what hourly rate is seen at acceptable now for a fully qualified plumber? Saw a job in Manchester at the dizzy heights of £20 an hour. Guess this isn't standard for a plumber on the books?
 
Mgrant said:
Interesting thread, what hourly rate is seen at acceptable now for a fully qualified plumber? Saw a job in Manchester at the dizzy heights of £20 an hour. Guess this isn't standard for a plumber on the books?
Click to expand...

I have seen plumbing assessor jobs advertised at £14 per hour and the hourly rate for plumbers in the south west can be as low as £3.30 per hour for apprentices, to about £8 hour for qualified at level 2, and £9 newly qualified at level 3. Experienced workers could expect anything from £14 to £18 per hour - so £20 seems good deal at moment for Manchester. Lower rates in south west because it is beautiful to live here! Around 30 years ago I was earning well over 1k a week doing lead work! so wages have slumped significantly.
 
Someone newly qualified at level 2 won't have lead work - City and Guilds have removed it from the syllabus.
 
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