Why we Need to Start Putting Vocational Careers First
Posted by: electime 6th April 2022
The pandemic quickly highlighted that tradespeople are essential to our day-to-day lives. They are the people who keep our homes warm, the lights on and the water running. Because of this, when the UK went into lockdown tradespeople were quickly one of the few professions to be labelled as key workers and were able to continue carrying out their day-to-day work, while understandably adhering to rules on social distancing and PPE.
Given this acknowledgement of how important vocational skills are to our everyday lives, it is hard to fathom why we have such a problem actively championing trade skills to young people during education.
Overlooking vocational training during education has led to a skills shortage that is crippling growth in key industries, such as construction. But, there are signs that this misguided approach to vocational careers could now start to impact other trades including electricians. According to the homebuilders’ federation, it takes 300 electricians to produce 10,000 homes. Yet, reports indicate we could soon see an annual shortfall of 10,000 electricians, under a best-case scenario. This will impact the building of some 330,000 new homes.
While we have seen governments sporadically profess support for vocational skills, this is usually confined to apprenticeship drives and shallow initiatives resulting in missed targets. Even recent proposals that promise support to help equip a new generation of workers so we can create a green economy have been noted as needing to be “fleshed out”. What we need now is more than empty words. And, given the recent attention, it is the perfect time to re-examine our attitude towards vocational training.
This starts by reappraising what success looks like for young people. The conventional opinion has been that ‘successful’ students go onto university after school. But, while university will no doubt be the correct path for a huge number of young people, championing university above all else overshadows those with skills and ambitions suited to vocational training. We desperately need a status quo that offers this cohort the same level of support and respect as those proceeding to academic higher education.
Key to this shift, will be addressing the misconception that choosing a career grounded in a trade will lead to inferior financial reward. Trainee tradespeople typically earn on par with newly qualified graduates, and this is usually achieved without the fees that typically arise from studying degrees. Moreover, a trade can be practiced with flexibility and has an entrepreneurial paradigm that encourages people to start their own businesses.
This will require a difficult conversation about how the current landscape is failing those who want to learn a trade for life and break out into the industry. We need to be looking at more targeted funding options and a change to apprenticeship schemes, so they offer realistic support to help people through training in order to fill the skills gap. We cannot allow ourselves to get into a situation where we do not have enough tradespeople to cover the most basic needs like heating and running water due to increasing callout wait times.
The demand is certainly out there. We have seen interest in vocational training increase by 49 per cent as people realise that choosing a career as an electrician can offer well-paid, reliable careers even in times of uncertainty. We now just need the support from the government that the industry deserves. With a little help, we can challenge misplaced attitudes towards vocational learning and equip the UK with the next generation of skilled tradespeople.
