MAKE YOUR OWN WAY
Choosing to pursue a trade opens doors to many opportunities
A TRADE can set a worker up for the rest of their career – but they do not have to do the same thing every day for 50 years.
There are many career paths available from starting a business or becoming a manager or teacher, through to upgrading to a dual trade or combining practical and theoretical skills with a university degree.
TAFE Queensland SkillsTech general manager John Tucker says people often think tradespeople complete an apprenticeship then do that trade forever, but that is not necessarily the case.
“People move careers and might start as a qualified plumber and end up as a project manger or in other aspects of the construction industry or change entirely,” he says.
Tucker, who started out as a chef, says one possible career path for a tradesperson is to become a vocational education teacher.
“They can’t teach for us unless they have a trade background, that’s how I started in TAFE a long time ago.”
Another option is to gain a dual trade, upskilling in a second area in a shorter amount of time by leveraging recognition of prior learning.
“We have a lot of automotive mechanical-qualified people doing a dual trade in automotive electrical, reflecting that vehicles are becoming more electrically focused,” he says.
Similarly, tradespeople can take their practical skills into theoretical university courses and graduate with the best of both worlds – although
Tucker says this does not happen as often as he would like.
“It should be more common than it is,” he says.
A more common choice for a qualified tradesperson is to start their own business.
The Federal Government’s Australian Jobs 2019 report shows 24 per cent of technicians and trades workers are self-employed, including 46 per cent of construction trades workers.
SkillsOne chief executive Brian Wexham says tradespeople can also use vocational education to gain business knowledge.
“You might be a skilled carpenter or bricklayer or chef but you could go to a TAFE and do some business skills that enables you to run a business in a meaningful and profitable way,” he says.
Cabinet-maker Jason Hindes, owner of Hindesbydesign studio workshop, won silver at the 1989 WorldSkills International competition.
He has since volunteered with WorldSkills, training competitors and managing the cabinetmaking category as chief expert in Germany in 2013, Brazil in 2015 and Abu Dhabi in 2017.
“The competition (has) become a real show, just like the sports Olympics,” he says
In the lead-up to National Skills Week, which started last Monday, Skills-One launched the Skills and Thrills Digital Parents Showcase.
The free online content is accessible until September 4 and covers topics such as industry trends amid COVID-19, the types of apprenticeships and traineeships available, and resources and support services.