What about the school leavers?
Granted, these kids are just that, kids. But if you take on a CC/CCC with all their 'baggage', they're a complete pain in the arze.
Give em two days & they'll be trying tell the boss what to do. When the plain fact is; they have failed in any other career, but yet they'll be great Plumbers??!!! Don't think so!!
Failures & losers.
What is it with you? Why will they all be failures? Some may fail but they won't all fail, if they want it bad enough they will find a way.
I reckon you feel threatened by the youngsters coming up to take your place, why be so negative? Who do you think is going to take the place of the likes of you when you hang up your pipe bender, the younger guys thats who, granted, some of the young uns, havent got a good work ethic but some have, and the ones that have will get where they want to get.
To the OP, I went into gas just over 11 years ago when the ACS first came out, I already did a lot of basic plumbing having a construction background but decided to go back to college to get the 'papers' with a view to specialising in plumbing and gas, I had a lot of people say to me ' why bother? no one will take you on with no gas experience' ...just made me more determined and 3 years later I had done all my plumbing plus level 3, plus gas, 4 appliances, all done in Coventry technical college and y'know what, within a week of me getting my final gas quals I was taken on by a building / maintenance company with their own gas section, they put me on a reduced rate for a couple of months while I shadowed one of their guys on mainly servicing and breakdowns and within 3 weeks the manager put me up to full rate so they were obviously pleased with my work.
Like Chrisr says...it was a bit easier to go it alone in the early days than it is now but I didnt let anyone put me off, 11 years later I live in South Wales, run my own business, only one man band but thats the way I like it, not going to become a millionaire but I make a living and thats the main thing, also did all my oil traing and assessments seeing as I live semi rural, got a good loyal customer base now and dont often have a day off work unless I choose to, so..don't let the likes of Delta whatever his name is put you off, if you want to do it, go for it...good luck mate.
ps I was in my late 30's when I started training, knocking on 50 now...
