To think some people are really snobby about tradespeople?

There's no such thing as a pointless job. Now you're the one being snobby and looking down on people.

Oh I totally agree with you. University shouldn’t be for 50% of our population. Was such a ridiculous policy laid out by Blair and I thought that at the time and it’s proven itself to be a stupid policy now. More people should absolutely go into vocational employment and it very much ought to be a better recognised route. I certainly don’t think it should be that everyone feels they need to go to university. I would be delighted to see the uk shred the number of universities (a tiny country doesn’t need 80 unis) and revert the polytechnics back to being vocational centres of learning and keep the degree status for academic programmes of study. They’re totally different things. Blair was trying to engineer a way to break down class barriers by making university more accessible for people in the working and lower middle classes. All he succeeded in doing however is force people into universities who should never have been there, devalue degrees, push poorer people into mountains of debt for a very low return on investment and create a vastly overqualified workforce whilst reducing the amount of people who are trained for vocational work and create a skills gap such that we need to import tradespersons. It’s a mess

Doubt it!

You must be the only “tradie” in existence who is has been an academic at Oxford and Cambridge!

I totally agree with that. The German system of apprenticeships is amazing. It’s what we tried to do in the uk but there is such a poor opinion of apprenticeships that it could never succeed. But that’s what the country really needs. Too many universities here and people in them that would be better served by vocational training programmes. We don’t need 50% of the economy to be university educated - was a stupid labour policy that made no sense as soon as Blair announced it. We don’t have enough trades people and have to import them. We need a regulatory regime for tradespeople and a certification scheme that governs them. It would do wonders for public opinion of the trades and would drive up standards and public confidence.

It’s laughable isn’t it?!

My own mum trained as hairdresser in the late 70’s/early 80’s, then went to work in her sister’s salon…..where she still works to this day.
I remember going work with her during the school holidays when I was little - back in the day when she still had a different colour stiletto for every day of the week that she’d wear to work - and thinking it was the most glamorous place I’d ever been!
I distinctly remember a really posh, older lady, with most fabulous, silvery hair that reached her mid-back. She’d come in every week to have her hair washed, blow dried and put up in a 60’s style beehive, set with enough hairspray to form its own crater in the ozone layer 😂

Less for the original installations, and far more to maintain and repair them when they go wrong. Plenty of people and companies are jumping aboard the Green wagon, but it's already tough to find anyone who will bother to turn up to fix them. Most IME just suck their teeth and recommend buying a newer model, if they even turn up for a look see.

This times 100. DH and I look at YouTube videos and try and do as much as we can ourselves, as it is just about impossible to get decent, reliable, affordable tradespeople these days.

With the Net Zero drive in fifth gear politically, we need (literally) millions more clever tradespeople, who will ideally understand the physics and maths, and the plumbing and wiring, that underpin the workings of heat pump systems, which are much more complicated and delicate than a standard domestic boiler.

I wish my husband had a trade 😜 he has soft hands as he works in IT

the problem I see is that it is tricky for young people to get decent work experience. Some people can’t get the work experience they need alongside their courses in plumbing, electrical etc
they need to reduce the red tape as how are they supposed to learn.

Dh works in a ‘trade’ (though he is the company director and has a university degree, he still literally does the dirty work along with his employees too). He makes probably 5x what I make with a PhD and an otherwise ‘naice’ sort of big London job. 😂

I’m a woman, I run a business (skilled trade) and have a university degree (1st class).
I start work at 8am finish at 5pm then do an hour of admin. People who think trades don’t work very hard don’t know what they’re talking about!
Rain or shine I’m working or else I don’t get paid, no sick days for me I’m afraid.

In my social circle people aren’t. A lot of the wealthier ones/wealthier family members are tradespeople. The job I wanted required a degree but isn’t well paying at all. My parents pushed the university only option but they were a bit out of touch with reality and I certainly wouldn’t pressure my children to go to university.

People are very odd about this, I agree.

I'm a tradie; I'm also a part-time academic. I have a PhD and I've worked at Oxford and Cambridge. I have colleagues who have degrees and advanced degrees; I also have colleagues who left school with nothing at all.

I find it really telling how rude some people are. I've had a woman point at me in front of her child and say 'now: if you don't work at school, this is where you'll end up'!

Absolutely. I have two examples. I am a criminal defence solicitor turned dog groomer (own business).
I’ve seen a huge difference in the way people treat me now. It doesn’t bother me but I do notice.

Also DH used to be a sales manager earning £40k+. He was made redundant during covid and being quite handy he started his own Handyman business. I helped him out with one particular job at a gymnasium and the assistant manager was so rude to him. No respect at all. He says he puts up with it because it’s regular work but she is awful to him.

And I’m a uni lecturer btw. While I value academia, I by no means think everyone should go to uni. Trades can be great careers and it’s odd there’s so much snobbery around them.

I don’t judge tradespeople at all. I do sometimes say to my DH in a relatively underpaid middle management role that he should’ve skipped uni and been an electrician!

I could never have been a tradesperson. I am no good with my hands.

I was being facetious, truly, I totally get that they are very talented in what they do. I certainly couldn’t do it.

Okay.

Interesting. I’ve never set a single tradesperson in an independent school. I’ve often wondered about it. Many of them can clearly afford it. But I can totally imagine that people wouldn’t be so nice about them and their kids (sorry, but true).

I guess it’s just what you value. I had nothing to do with the people at school who became practical people because I was an academic one and yes everyone looked down on them. I value education and I guess I prefer people who are educated

You did them a favour by the sound of it.