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welding engineering career prospects

  • 13-08-2013 9:22am
    #1
    rodderz88
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4 ✭


    Hi im a 24 year old qualified mechanic.ive lost all interest in the motor trade-poor wages, ,lack of respect ect etc . We're not the knuckle dragging grease monkeys that the general public perceive us to be! Anyways ive taken uo employment at a small engineering company.i have basic welding skills mig/arc and basic lathe skills..basically I want to upskill and try to increase my €22k salary in the next couple of years. I like weldng and was thinking becoming a coded welder might be a good route?? Im not crazy about going vack to do an engineering degree, but I would not rule ir out either.any and all posts would b greatly appreciated. Many thanks in advance


Comments

  • #2
    antiskeptic
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,555 ✭✭✭antiskeptic


    rodderz88 wrote: »
    Hi im a 24 year old qualified mechanic.ive lost all interest in the motor trade-poor wages, ,lack of respect ect etc . We're not the knuckle dragging grease monkeys that the general public perceive us to be! Anyways ive taken uo employment at a small engineering company.i have basic welding skills mig/arc and basic lathe skills..basically I want to upskill and try to increase my €22k salary in the next couple of years. I like weldng and was thinking becoming a coded welder might be a good route?? Im not crazy about going vack to do an engineering degree, but I would not rule ir out either.any and all posts would b greatly appreciated. Many thanks in advance

    An lot depends on your attitude to a life of repetitive work - given that it suits some folk down to the ground and drives other folks insane.

    Another key factor is your desire for self determination and whether that's something you want to work towards more of.

    Lastly, you've to look at sheer earning power in the future when house/kids come along and your annual holiday costs a lot more than 5 lads and a few slabs of beer cramming it into a two man tent for the weekend. Whilst it's possible to earn good money at trade level, it very often comes at the expense of having to do shifts and overtime to get the extras than folk have come to think of as standard issue. Assuming you marry and have kids, the number of disposable hours in a week left to yourself will be few enough even with a 40 hour a week job. If you're using all these up doing overtime or recovering from unsociable hours working then life can get very one track. Live to work, work to live.

    -

    Although it's hard to generalize, you'll find you have more work variety, self-determination and better earning power the higher up you go. And it tends to be that as the desire for these things increases (due to boredom in your job, getting sick of taking instructions from fools above you, financial pressures arriving as you get older), your opportunity to obtain them decreases. For those reasons (and a host of others having to do with sheer interest) and assuming it's something you reckon you could take on, I'd recommend investigating the degree route. I did (after jacking in an apprentice fitter / motorcycle mechanic / chef work) and it was one of the best decisions I ever made. I only finished it at 29 years of age (having had to repeat the leaving and go the technician/diploma/degree route - incl having to do the first tech year over two years of evening classes) but the late start is quickly forgotten as you get on with your career.


  • #3
    pmrozik
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 52 ✭✭pmrozik


    rodderz88 wrote: »
    Hi im a 24 year old qualified mechanic.ive lost all interest in the motor trade-poor wages, ,lack of respect ect etc . We're not the knuckle dragging grease monkeys that the general public perceive us to be!

    Where'd you get the idea that the general public sees you as a grease monkey? I happen to have a lot of respect for mechanics as I just simply don't have manual skills so I'm always amazed at how mechanics do things. You may have come across a few rotten apples out there, but I'm sure it's not the general public.

    I think you could make a lot of dough welding, so if you like it then work at improving your skills. Offshore welding jobs can be quite profitable from what I've heard. As antiskeptic said though, you must take into account the live to work, work to live scenario, but if you know how to budget you should be fine.


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