It’s incredibly difficult for trainee plumbers to qualify
As if finding your way through the minefield of where to train isn’t enough, what most trainee plumbers aren’t aware of is that they have to have or find work as a plumber to qualify.
Some courses insist a prospective trainee plumber has work of some sort lined up before they begin training, but in the long run all this will do is reduce the number of new plumbers.
Some courses allude vaguely to the requirement in their initial documentation in ways that keep them out of legal trouble but which aren’t clear to prospective trainees.
Many don’t charge for the final stage in which the work in the real world has to be carried out, but this means that charges mount up as you get nearer qualification and have already jumped through so many hoops.
The situation surely cannot continue. At some point, someone will say ‘enough is enough’ and name the elephant in the room.
There is work to be had for plumbing trainees, usually at around £10 per day or even unpaid.
Hardly surprising really that trainees sometimes go ‘rogue’ and start work without completing or as is the case with women trainee plumbers who have usually left an unsatisfying but relatively secure job, they go back to it.
It’s a shame and one that training as a whole has to take on.
Ironic that an unknown but enormous proportion of the women training to be plumbers leak out of the system back to the jobs they left because they believe they won’t be able to work as plumbers.
Ironic because customers are crying out for women plumbers.
Where we’d say to most male plumbing trainees that the reputation of the industry is so bad it’s virtually impossible to go against it; for women it’s quite the opposite.
If women can get through the system and out the other side there’s a shiny future waiting for them.
We realised this several years ago at Stopcocks Women Plumbers when we set up a way for women to gain their experience in real work and earn enough to keep hearth and home together.
Self-employed Stopcocks Plumbers use our mentoring and supervision to qualify and make sure their customers are happy.
We’ve now extended that and provide training in a fully accredited qualification course so that women don’t have to
1) pay over the odds
2) train for two years
3) train in a classroom with 16 years olds (nothing against them but they have different priorities)
But can:
a) begin working and gaining confidence and competence as soon as they’re ready
b) earn while they train
c) finish their training and have their business already up and running
Contact us to find out more
