I worked on the Falklands along side military people, and we would help each other out, much depended on the trade, some trades where very well trained, others were some what lacking, for example I has an auto electrician visit me, he had been trained how to rewire a tank, not sure when you would do that once he left the forces, and many of the trucks were designed for quick repair, the alternator and starter motor plugged in, but all the alternators and starter motors were repaired in UK by non military personal, so he had no idea how to repair a coaxial starter motor, being fair not the easiest of units to repair, but he had never needed to repair one, so when he when on leaving the military to be an auto electrician he was going to have a very steep learning curve.
But of course it is the same anywhere, my dad's apprenticeship was 7 years, 5 years in the wire works that had taken him on, and 2 years journeyman so 6 months in 4 other firms so he had a rounded knowledge. By time I did it day release gave the rounded knowledge bit, and when working on the building of Sizewell 'B' I saw electrical apprentices who never work on any fault finding, and spend nearly all their apprenticeship fitting tray and trunking not really fair on them.
When I started I could flit from installation, maintenance, industrial, domestic, and commercial, but today the Part P law has resulted in the domestic electrician becoming a specialist field, in latter years my main tool was the laptop, repairing machines controlled by computers (PLC) which is very different to wiring a house, which I have also done.
He needs to knock on doors, and ask the firms boss if he can spend a day with an electrician as he wants to become one, he will likely not be allowed to do that, but by asking the boss sees he's keen. We have with local heritage railway people who volunteer from school, well we did, not so easy now, but they would not last long before they got a full time job, as saying I have started to learn by volunteering for the Welshpool railway mean employers knew they were keen and they may return at weekends but don't see them any more on midweek gang.