BrhTiling

Well, the way I see it is this; The amount of people don't training courses is huge, especially in areas such as mine where big plants / manufacturing jobs have all recently gone!
People are looking to re-train and make a living as self employed tradesmen, generally the semi-skilled type (such as Tiling, Plastering, Kitchen fitting, painting/decorating) etc........ You only have to open up the local paper or go into your local DIY store to see there are vast numbers people advertising their services.... So maybe some areas are getting flooded now.

It is virtually impossible to get on a plumbing course with the local college in this area - Probably because it has been well documented in the media just how short of plumbers we were / are, and now everyone is rushing into the sector, with delusions of earning 50k a year!

The problem with tiling (as I see it), is with it being a semi-skilled trade. In reality anyone can glue tiles to a wall with the minimum of education / training, that means basically we are charging for our labour rather than a specialist knowledge or skill.... So there is always going to be a guy down the road who can do it just that bit cheaper / quicker.....

Where is something like a spark or plumber, gas fitter...etc, all need recognised qualifcations to get work and so they aren't quite as easily replaced.
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Blah, that all sounds a bit negative doesn't it?

Don't get me wrong, it obviously does work out for some people.... However with most things in life.... 10 newbie tilers could put in equal amounts of effort & hard work and maybe only 3 of them would be sucessful long term... IMO anyway.