Qualified to work in England?

beatrixtiff

Hi there, I am currently a fully qualified Irish electrician of 2 years out of my time (4 year apprenticeship-FEETAC National Craft Card), and am currently working in Australia. I will be moving to England next year sometime and was hoping someone could give some information on what I have to do in order to be qualified to work in England?
Kind Regards, Robert

.G.

beatrixtiff wrote: »

Hi there, I am currently a fully qualified Irish electrician of 2 years out of my time (4 year apprenticeship-FEETAC National Craft Card), and am currently working in Australia. I will be moving to England next year sometime and was hoping someone could give some information on what I have to do in order to be qualified to work in England?
Kind Regards, Robert

Nothing as far as I know.

Your national craft cert meets(and some would say exceeds) those standards of an English electrician.

the 17th edition of their wiring rules would be fairly similar to our 4th edition too

beatrixtiff

I thought that too, but I also got a reply from my friend who has moved over there, and you have to do a course that costs 800 pound! It entitles you to test/sign off work and also work for yourself. Nonsense I think considering that our apprenticeship is 2 years longer and we learn much more.
Has anyone else heard of this? Any replies would be grateful. Rob

Intensive Care Bear

Hi i think i can help you with a few things, first of all i wouldnt count on your FEETAC card getting you work in England. I have never meet an employer over here that recognises the Irish qualifications (even though it does exceed the english qualifications in most areas) So there are a few things that you will need to do depending on the type of work you want to do.

For domestic work you need to be part p registered. You can do a course that that covers domestic testing and the 17th edition wiring regs. This course is open to anyone even people with no electrical qualifications (which is a bit of a joke) Once you do this and register with a governing body such as the NICEIC (the English version of RECI) you are free to install, test and certify any domestic work you want.

Intensive Care Bear

If you want to do more than domestic work it gets a bit more complicated. First of all you will need to get your Irish qualifications changed over to an NVQ level 3, you can do this by contacting uk NARIC. Then you will need an ECS card (safe pass for electricians) get this by contacting the JIB. Next you will need the 17th edition, that is the regs exam that everyone must have you can just sit the exam for about £100 or do a 3 day course and the exam for a bit more. Once you have the above you can get a JIB (electrical union) installation electrician card which a lot of employers look for. Another exam i would recommend is the city and guilds 2391 this is for the test and inspection of all installations, you will need this if you want to get an approved electrician card from the JIB. It is the hardest exam you will have to do over here because testing is taken very seriously. I think this exam should be compulsory in Ireland. Oh and be prepaired to take a pay cut the union rates over here is only about £13 an hour with angencies paying as little as £10 an hour for qualified sparks

onq

I think England operates a restricted entry in terms of working there in a trade - it certainly does for architects who want to work there permanently.

At the bare minimum there will be some form of registration requirement and they won't recognise your qualification, which is a form of closed shop.

Some would argue that its done to protect its indigenous population from sharks.

Others will say its to protect its own tradesmen and professions.

Either way, there will be hurdles to jump involving registration.

Then you can start worrying about findine work in that economy.

Why would you be moving from an economy with a lot of work on to England?

England is still officially not out of recession according to news yesterday and you're in an economy that's still "works".

I'd be careful about making that choice if I were you, in fact I might be moving to Australia soon if things don't pick up around here.

ONQ.

2011

Perhaps one of you can tell me if the City & Guilds 236 parts 2 and 3 (sometimes known as the "Bs" and the "Cs") are recognised over there?

eoghan.geraghty

You will need to be part P compliant, I think this covers you for commercial work too but am open to correction on this.
Getting your part P compliance is a basic enough exam but still worth doing a course first to familiarise yourself with the stuff they will ask.
As 1210m5g states it gets harder for industrial work.
This is no different to Australia where you will need to do an expensive course and exam in order to work there.

beatrixtiff

Thanks very much everyone for your help on this, just gives me some guidance when i decide to move back next year some time, after Australia. Im working as a 'trade assistant' over in melbourne. Not the full rate of course but its still good. And its also 30'c!!:D Thanks again for your comments and feel free to add on.

Have a look at http://www.ableskills.co.uk/electrical-course-2393.htm, i have my Part P, i have the higher level which allows me to do rewires and sign off on my own work(not that i do), if an old gas fitter like me can do it then you should fly it. I do find the idea that i am more competent to do your job in the UK than you are a bit mental, but it's the same as all the fruit loops in Ireland working as "gas engineers" who have done their GID and GIS, As a fully qualified gas engineer with C&G 661, G3, Part P, Part L all my Acs and fully registered in the UK i still had to sit my GID and GIS before i could work legally in Ireland. so they are all as bad as each other, Gary.