Where and how much does it cost to do electrician training?

[grovepark]

I have been asked what sort of places offer electrician training and what sort of price is this?

 

[Chri5]

I have been asked what sort of places offer electrician training and what sort of price is this?

Sorry mate, a lazy post gets a lazy answer. Dare I suggest you use the diynot search and use a keyword like "training", "qualifications" or "retraining as an electrician".

 

[PrenticeBoyofDerry]

I have been asked what sort of places offer electrician training and what sort of price is this?

Would be helpful if you could offer a little more detail, electricity is a very diverse field of employment and progressive training is nearly always required.

If your starting from scratch and wish to progress to level 3 knowledge, which would mean undertaken technical units in electrical installations, buildings and structures, requirements of BS7671, requirements of building regulations, testing, inspection, fault finding, diagnoses and certification etc....

This courses could cost £3000, over three years on a proper learning structure. Then you will require the relevant publication for learning, reference and guidance. Plus any travelling expensive and the cost of stationery and tools if required.

I would be looking at local colleges, offering City and Guild qualifications, in electrical technology. Normally find options of full time, one day a week or two evenings a week.

 

[grovepark]

I was just asked in passing hence the lack of info, as someone mentioned a become an electrician in a week and earn £££ course they saw in the paper but I suggested that things that seem too good to be true often are. I have told them to go look at the local colleges etc for courses and that it may cost money.

 

[ericmark]

The fitters where I worked were sent on an electrical awareness course which took a week. It was not designed to make them into electricians but how to do limited electrical work safely.

The idea was not to have electricians on nights and any small jobs would be done by the fitters. To my mine it was a dangerous course as they returned thinking they could do much more then they really could but I was told the course cost around £2000 each.

As a fully trained electrician in around 2002 I went on a series of night classes just to upgrade to latest regulations which had come out 3 hours a night three courses running one after the other 6 weeks 6 weeks and 12 weeks I have since had to do one all over again for new regulations which have come out since but I think you can see when if it was done all together it would take two weeks just to upgrade to latest regulations and test procedures one could not learn the job from scratch in less than a year even if one was very quick learning.

As with many trades often there are parts of the trade which we may not use for years at a time. I felt sorry for the apprentices working on a job I was involved with as the firm was only installing the cables and the firm I worked for connected them up. So both the electricians and apprentices working for the other firm had 4 years without connecting or testing a single cable. The skills they used was how to install miles of tray work and to tie the cables to it looking neat as all were seen. It is possible that with a weeks training some one could be taught one part of electrical work specially where there previous job was similar. The pipe fitters also installed tray for their pipes and on that job I would guess a pipe fitter could have passed himself off as an electrician.

 

[PrenticeBoyofDerry]

I have just been speaking to a gas engineer, who is enrolling on the electrical technology level 2 course, part-time, 2 evenings a week at my local college and the enrolment fee for year 1 is £1000.
As stated previously the fast tracks are expensive, you are not going to be able to receive or take in the required knowledge in the short duration of these courses, you also need some hands on with experience engineers to progress to a competent level.
I have heard of people taking these courses, paying a load of money out and either not getting the qualification due to lack of exam success or not getting the qualification/experience/confidence, they thought would lead to the great world of doing the job safely and legally.
It's lifetime learning curve, but to get the fundamental principles and solid grounding of knowledge and be any good, it will require progressive learning and experience over a period of time.

 

[17thman]

Some scenarios

1) an apprentice/mate/jobber for years who goes self employed after years, gets a 5 day course in, passes and becomes a dilligent, professional and quality work


2) an apprentice/mate/jobber for years who goes self employed after years, gets a 5 day course in, passes and becomes a money chasing, serial contraveanor and with no concience.

3) A person who responds to a 5day course and unknowingly nearly/potentially or really kills people with bad workmanship and design.

4) A person who responds to a 5 days course, passes and becomes a self employed electrician, dilligent, comitted etc and runs a sucessful honest business.

5) An experienced electrician who has all the qualifications, time served, years at colledge, who does not give a flying F@}k

6) An experienced time served electrician who decides to only be employed and continues to provide excellent workmanship in a timely honest manner for his/her boss.

It does not matter how you get qualified, it what happens afterwards.