Builders more qualified than you think ?

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The stereo type of builders being well less than the brightest sparks has been put to bed by a survey commissioned by AXA the insurance provider.

Tradesmen needed
Tradesmen needed

The poll surprisingly reveals that.

  • Over a third (37%) of those polled had been university educated
  • More than eight in ten (83%) had a formal professional qualification in their trade
  • Over seventy per cent had taken an apprenticeship. In turn, nearly half have themselves offered opportunities to others by providing a formal apprenticeship within their business.

So most of the tradesmen within the industry have some sort of qualifications and (37%) have a degree women only represented only one in ten of those who were interviewed, two thirds of these were under the age of 35 suggesting that a profession in the building industry is becoming more attractive to females.

  • Across both male and female tradespeople, 43 per cent made a “career choice” to enter the profession
  • 28% went into the family business
  • Nearly half had worked in another industry before settling on their trade

That’s not all it turns out that working weekends is more common than you think.

  • Average the UK’s tradespeople are working 41 hours a week,
  • (89%) will work weekends some of the time and one in five (22%) always work weekends.
  • They take two and three quarter weeks holiday a year and the vast majority
  •  Happiness in their job on a scale of 1-10, the average came out at eight suggesting a nation of happy builders, plumbers and electricians.

When it comes to some of the old clichés about tradespeople more than aquarter of those polled do read the Sun, but the same number read The Times.