Hi All
I did a course at NE Tiling training centre, which I though was first class.
However I feel that the career opportunities just are not out there for a succesful prolonged career in tiling for a vast majority of the people completing these courses.
Arguably there are times when the jobs will come flooding in, but other times there will be famines.
It seems to me that in this trade (unlike other trades)
you really need to go out and search for the work, I have seen the ridiculous number of business cards in all of my local tile shops escalate in the past few months, I have seen people putting flyers on peoples cars outside of DIY shops and I have even seen somebody at a local boot fair advertising his services - I assumed he was there for the full day. (good idea I thought to be fair).
Can you really expect to earn £1000 a week? probably occasionally maybe.
Can you even earn half of that week in week out. I doubt it. (a few lucky ones perhaps)
I think its necessary to have another string to your bow to fall back onto when times are hard which is a shame really because I don't think people appreciate the effort that goes in to an average tiling job, especially when plumbers and sparkys are charging more for considerably less effort without the need to search for work half as much.
I dont want this post to sound to dour
but I think it is about time that training centres were realistic and fair to their students rather than being a constant production line banging out 'tiling professionals' and eventually saturating the market, as seems to be the case now.
I have tried to take a realistic opinion, in that I did the course not for financial gain but as a useful skill to know, if work came my way with it, then the more the merrier but I seriously dont think people should be misled in this way.
whats peoples opinions?
Tell me to fook off if you like
maybe I'm completely wrong, maybe people are making fortunes with work coming out of their ears, it would be interesting to know.