Archive for the ‘work’ Tag
“The Man who Swapped Science for Plumbing”
A redundant scientist is earning ‘top’ money in the plumbing industry after taking a training course with top trades’ school ATL, the Daily Mirror has revealed.
Leading trade skills provider ATL made news across the country today after laboratory scientist Steve Banks hung up his test tubes and went looking for a way to turn his life round.
And Steve, aged 43, who has two sons, Mathew and Daniel, as well as a three-year old girl Ruby and lives with his wife, Naomi, said he wished he had taken the plunge years ago.
Steve told the Daily Mirror: “I started looking around for courses I could do in my own time while carrying on working and asking people for recommendations and found that ATL had a very good reputation.”
When Steve was made redundant in 2009, he had almost completed his plumbing course and was about to set up his own business… Now he earns about £45,000 a year, much more than in his previous job.
Steve said: “It was great really, I got so much confidence from the course that my business grew through word of mouth.”
Altogether, Steve from Letchworth, Herts, spent about £6,500 from his redundancy money on his training. “This was a lifetime investment for me and it is paying off.”
Steve says that he is a very practical person who always enjoys doing things with his hands. He used to help his father who was working in the building trades before he retired.
Like every new thing, Steve admits that his business was slow to start with, but soon people began to ring him, saying that a friend had recommended his services. Now he is thinking of employing extra people to help him.
A new half a million vocational training college has opened in Southampton. The former secondary school on Burgoyne Road, in Thornhill, is the first dedicated building skills college for those wanting to go into the building services engineering industry. The centre is run by training specialist Apprenticeship Training Limited (ATL) and covers courses from plumbing to nuclear site services.
Managing director of ATL, Nick Hayward, joined Steve Harris from BBC Radio Solent to explain more about the training opportunities available to those who want to pursue a successful career in the trades.
Nick, can you tell us more about apprenticeships…Youth unemployment is at a record high, do you think that apprenticeships can help to tackle this at all?
I certainly do. Obviously, apprentices need the support of local employers to give young people work opportunities, but in terms of learning a trade and skills; and potentially having a career for life, I really don’t think that there is any substitute for apprenticeships. Apprentices are employed from the first day of their training, or certainly within the first six months, and they earn whilst they learn; they learn the trade literally doing the job.
Is there not an argument that there is a limited number of jobs out there and if the housing market is in a bit of stasis at the moment that learning these skills might prove fruitless in a couple of years once people complete their apprenticeship?
I think that there is always a danger because markets are susceptible to certain economic conditions one ways or the other. However, the good news in the building services engineering sector is that there are still significant skill shortages in the UK and with higher than average age workforce, the opportunities going forward are very good because people are retiring all the time. You have also got the introduction of new technologies such as the renewable energy sector coming in which will require plumbers, electricians and gas engineers to install them and get involved.
How are you delivering these vocational subjects to students in college, how do people tend to learn? They can’t be sat at desks looking at a whiteboard…can they?
No, there is a combination of the underpinning knowledge, the theory side to any skill trade, but a lot of it is directly hands on in workshops. Getting them with the tools in their hands and the equipment they will be working with, and then under the guide and the tuition of experienced engineers apprentices learn by them, passing on all those skills. We compliment that with E-learning and we are about to introduce virtual reality training so that they take these skills into the virtual world. We have developed a universal programme which replicates pretty much any tool which is used in the trades; they are able to learn the skills in a virtual environment which, off course, for young people is particularly useful because there is no peer pressure; you can get it wrong as many times as you like and it is great for sustainability because you are not wasting scarce natural resources.
Is it true that you are going to get 5,000 students through in the first year? That’s a remarkable number…
We have 5 centres across the UK and this one in Southampton is the latest venture. We have relocated it and the new centre is much larger. We have a good combination of young people, existing trade professionals and also adult career changers. Everybody deserves the opportunity to learn a trade if they want to do so. It’s pretty much the same thing no matter how old you are. And yes, we do have that many students passing through our centres every year across all the trades we offer.
Nick, by the sound of it I should come down and have a look at this virtual reality programme, it sounds fun.
I would be delighted to invite you sometime, Steve!
Wayne Thomson is an electrical tutor at the ATL centre in Worcestershire. Train4TradeSkills Radio spoke to Wayne to find out what students make of his training and how they are going to use it to develop their career.
Listen to Wayne’s Interview from via AudioBoo at: www.audioboo.fm/train4tradeskills
Wayne Thomson is an electrical tutor at the ATL centre in Worcestershire. Train4TradeSkills Radio spoke to Wayne to find out what students make of his training and how they are going to use it to develop their career.
Listen to Wayne’s Interview via AudioBoo at: www.audioboo.fm/train4tradeskills
As reported on Train4TradeSkills blog this week, Premier Inn, the England’s biggest budget hotel chain, has announced further investments for the building industry as it paves the way for more hotels to be built across the UK.
In addition to the £5.9 million investment in Camborne announced yesterday, Premier Inn brings £4.1 million investment to Coventry, as it opens a new hotel later this month.
With low availability of affordable hotel places in some parts of the UK and pressure to reduce costs, more smaller hotels are being built – especially such offering affordable prices to customers. Premier Inn has invested millions of pounds across the country in building and renovating new hotels across the UK. Recent developments include hotels in Worcestershire, Barry, Dartford and Camborne.
Although UK unemployment rose by 118,000, in the past three months since November, the building sector doesn’t seem to be affected due to the governments’ extensive investment to create thousands of jobs in the building construction sector.
The Prime Minister announced in the Commons today that whilst unemployment is rising, there is an increase in the number of people working; another 18, 000 people are in work.
“We need more private sector employment and we need to move further and faster on that agenda.” – Mr Cameron said.
Chris Grayling, the Work and Pensions Minister said in a BBC interview this morning that the recent figures on unemployment are more complex than they first appear.
Mr Grayling said that the government has lots of work to do in regards to improving employment opportunities and getting more people back to work. He said: “The private sector is creating jobs faster than the changes in the public sector.”
Mr Grayling said that there were more to the statistics than what first met the eye, but he admitted unemployment level was much too high.
If you are in the building sector, do you feel safer with your job than people in other industries? Tell us why? Do you think that enough is being done to tackle the unemployment?
Apprenticeship Training Limited, ATL 