To wonder why office jobs are the default for the middle classes

[KrispyKremeDream]

I wonder if this is related to days past when manual labour was the reserve of the working class.

Having moved into the construction sector four years ago I was surprised how much a lot of skilled manual workers get paid. For instance, my company are currently desperate for surfacers to lay tarmac and they just can't seem to find enough for love nor money, despite paying £180 a day plus overtime.

Annually that works out at about £47k for eight hour days with absolutely no work taken home, which is a fair bit more than the national average and more than the average for a good few professional jobs. For example, the UK average for an accountant is only £35k having looked at about five different salary sites. One site listed the average at £42k. Up to £12k less than a groundworker.

I wonder if it's the perception of 'white van men' etc which we frequently see on here. There certainly seems to be a different view of these types of jobs which is evident in the shock horror threads about 'a builder asked to use the toilet'. I always reflect that the OP would likely not have been so aghast had her accountant asked if they could use the loo.

Same with truck driving jobs. Massive shortage and salaries well over £50k. In spite of this I still see much talk of 'making university mire accessible for WC people'. I'm not disagreeing that it should be an option for anybody who wants to go, but there are so many fork lift drivers out there on £18k who could easily transition to driving trucks and already have decent knowledge of warehousing and how deliveries/logistics work. These people could easily be on £50k+ with just a few weeks training to get the licenses - a lot of companies are desperate enough to take fresh passes and don't even enforce the two years experience anymore.

It just seems odd to me that there's so little focus on easy wins like this. Is it because this is just an area that politicians and most professionals don't really understand? It just seems odd to me.

@Gwenhwyfar

"OP is talking about the people who don’t. Instead of pushing them into uni only for them to graduate and find mediocre office jobs which won’t pay above £30K why not go into the trades."

2 things. 1, it's not all about money. 2. Just because you don't have high earning potential in your office job doesn't mean you'll be good at skilled manual work. I was terrible at CDT, cooking and every practical subject at school. There's no way I'd be more successful as a plumber.

Well if someone is going to be shit at everything then there's no solution is there?

The point is why isn't the path at least considered? Nobody would point their kid towards being a waiter or retail worker (yes yes I'm aware people can work their way up to become store manager etc but that's not the point). In the same way people don't consider the trades unless you're from that world, or have the courage to change into it. Unlike getting people into 'tech' for which there are adverts everywhere (you're right about the sysadmin thing btw). While not everyone can code there are many who can but just hadn't considered it, like me, being encouraged to try their hand and finding that they're good at it. Why aren't the trades similar?

I'll admit I have very limited experience but DP's side of the family are tradies. Gas engineers, electricians, plumbers. People look down on them but they have the last laugh with their double digit '000 house deposits for all their children. Again being a plumber is different from being a tarmac layer but that's the gist. Most of them don't even own companies employing people or anything like that they just work for themselves and turn down jobs they don't want.

@VerveClique

I’m not suggesting that you should be an expert OP, but I don’t think you know much more about workplaces or the labour market than what you read In the daily mail, see on the news or glean from a quick browse on the job boards, and from your own personal experience.

MC people don’t just work in ‘office jobs’ they work in all sorts of industries and sectors. And there is manual work everywhere.

The factors that bring people to jobs, keep them there and encourage them to leave are many and varied. There’s a LOT more to it than the pay.

Well, I can compare my graduate fasttrack office job in a FTSE company with driving trucks and now working for a flat growing construction SME.

'Fast growing' not flat

@KrispyKremeDream yes everyone knows a man earning X doing these things, they all spin dits about it at DH's work, but when you're actually job hunting things like location, terms, hours, family obligations mean that these jobs aren't just ripe for the picking. That's why your posts are so frustrating, we are in the middle of it now!

And yes my DH is trained on the largest cranes due to his role. Many of the roles require you to travel across the country, stay over, and stay for as long as they are on site, so long, very boring, hours. Not convenient for a parent.

I'm somewhat in awe of the really big mobile cranes, but no it's not the best job for getting home every night by sound of it.

Its a strange assumption that because a job is 'working class' its there for the taking by any 'middle class' person who fancies it, as long as they're prepared to get a bit cold and dirty. Just as not everyone can succeed in a profession, not everyone has the practical skills to perform in a trade. It takes not only training, but aptitude, and in some cases a level of strength and fitness that not everyone has. The implication that now the money for this type of work is outstripping the professions, the class who wouldn't normally consider these jobs might as well do them, comes across as a bit disrespectful.

I'm somewhat in awe of the really big mobile cranes, but no it's not the best job for getting home every night by sound of it.

Unfortunately not many of the well paying jobs are, after years of deployments I really hoped we'd be able to have a bit more predictability and presence. We've looked at him going into logistics management instead, but like you that's not his bag at all, office jobs aren't for him.

Obviously tanker driving is another potentially lucrative route, but only if you're in the right location for it.

@TractorAndHeadphones

I don’t understand why people are bringing accountants into this thread? Of course if you have the potential to get a middle class office job then you should do so.

OP is talking about the people who don’t. Instead of pushing them into uni only for them to graduate and find mediocre office jobs which won’t pay above £30K why not go into the trades.

Why? Lots of people who are perfectly capable of being an accountant would much rather do something else.

"Nobody would point their kid towards being a waiter or retail worker (yes yes I'm aware people can work their way up to become store manager etc but that's not the point)."

Well, some people do! It's pretty common for parents in factory jobs etc. to get a job for their child in the same place. Maybe not as a first choice, but as a job because they need a job.

"He's had the last laugh, he's just retired (early) after 35 years as a sole trader/self employed plumber, living in a million pound house, with a couple of (owned not leased) BMWs in his drive."

You think a BMA is what makes a good life??? Even a million pound house doesn't make up for a boring job. Now, in this case, it seems he finds plumbing interesting, but not everybody does.

"Maybe administration and assistant staff will work fixed office hours, but higher levels will almost always be expected to do more outside core hours for no pay."

I've worked in places where the people above me really did finish at 5 most of the time. Non-profit sector.

There are several reasons why the middle class encourage their children into the professions.

Firstly, while men who are not graduates can on average earn more than some graduate jobs the same is not true for women, unskilled female dominated sectors are very low paid and can't compete with graduate jobs. A degree is always worthwhile for our daughters, that average £32k office job is a lot better paid than care work or hairdressing or catering or shop work. And while it is perfectly possible for women to go into male dominated industries they face sexism and misogyny there, it takes a certain personality to deal with that.

Secondly since this discussion is mainly about the building trade which is very sensitive to the state of the economy. So as soon as the pandemic hit then the building trade was hit whereas MC jobs like medicine or teaching (neither office jobs, not all professional jobs are 'office jobs') were very important and other professional desk based jobs were able to be done from home.

Thirdly professional jobs offer security. They tend to be less responsive to the state of the economy and so you are less likely to be made redundant. They have long notice periods, good maternity pay, sick pay, life insurance, dental and health insurance and pensions. A sparkie might well look well paid in comparison to a teacher until you think about their pension provision.

"The point is why isn't the path at least considered? "

But who says it's not considered? I think it probably is except for youngsters who are academic because for them continuing their education is probably a more interesting prospect.

I'm watching married at first sight Australia and there are a lot of "FIFO workers" on there. Whats the deal with that?

I'm not sure this is necessarily the case. Plenty of housing association properties still being built and tbh all the big companies still smashing out the big estates.

Taylor Wimpey and Miller are building hundreds of houses atm, and guy from Redrow told me the other day they had an 'exceptional' 2020 and expect operating revenue to rise as much as 45% this year.

On the smaller end, most of the properties we build are sold in a flash. Just completed a small estate in Walsall of circa £500k houses and all are already sold.

I worked all through lockdown whilst lots of my mates were furloughed and worried about their jobs. Some did indeed lose them.

To be fair, its true to say that projects were suffering, but the construction sector is statistically now back to pre-Covid levels which can't be said of many other sectors.

Building trades can be insecure - remember the early 80s when the workers were all going off to other places to be employed? Or even now, why are there people from places like Poland in the UK?

That being said, my experience has been that the people who are smart, good workers, will do well in trades or other work. Many people now also change jobs or do different things over time, lots of tradesmen take on more management type work as they get older.

There are also crappy jobs in the professions as well as crappy trades. Plenty of lawyers are not earning much in some places as there are too many for the work available. are doing dead boring work, or find they have no life. Plenty of office jobs really suck

Ultimately I think a lot comes down to what people have an aptitude for and what fits their lifestyle. I live in a rural area, the majority here are people who are in trades or self-employed, often they do lots of different things or work and farm. Most of them value that independence a lot.

We need people to do a lot of different things, but people tend to follow what is familiar to them, and there is often a tendency to discount trades for able people, even if they would do really well and enjoy it. Whereas kids from wc families are often encouraged if they are interested in office type jobs because it's seen as aspirational.

Interestingly there has been an increase in women working as machine drivers on construction sites- some cynics say it’s cost cutting- cheaper than hiring a man to do the job. Maybe filling the skills gap?

It's a labour shortage gap, but great to see more girls on site. My husband is a construction manager and they simply can't get the men anymore. He blames the push to university and also over regulation. In "his day" you could hire a young lad and train them up on site but you can't do that now.

I'm watching married at first sight Australia and there are a lot of "FIFO workers" on there. Whats the deal with that?

Fly-In-Fly-Out it's where I met my husband. Remote sites in Australia (mining mainly) we would work four weeks on and fly back to the city for a week off. Great times - insane money! Thousands of dollars per week.

Perhaps health and safety rules influence teenagers choices because they can't wander into a building site for a day to see what goes on. Or on a fishing boat, or most scientific labs etc etc. They see teachers, admin staff and sample the leisure industry.

My dad used to say to me when I didn't want to work in an office, you don't want to be out in all weathers working whenever someone demands it. Go work in an office you'll be better off.
When I was young I thought nothing of it but found it easier to find employment in an office anyway. Now I completely understand and even more so now I'm wfh I've gained massive benefits from being able to do so. I'm safe, I have benefits and security not offered in some trades and I also get to stay warm and clean which is important to me.

I knew someone whose father had a white-collar office job in, I think, a factory. He earned significantly less than the workers on the shop floor, partly due to the fact that they could boost their salaries with overtime and he couldn’t. And yet my friend’s family were deemed the posh ones because of that office job and people assumed that the dad was on a much greater wage than he was, when he in fact earned less than them. I don’t think people realise how little office jobs can pay.

In an unexpected way, I actually reckon raising visibility of jon-officr jobs might benefit as many women as men.

Lots of working class lads go into reasonably well paid trade/construction jobs, but most wc women do fairly low paid stuff like beauty, catering, etc. Obv these can be decent careers if you actually start a business.

@KrispyKremeDream

In an unexpected way, I actually reckon raising visibility of jon-officr jobs might benefit as many women as men.

Lots of working class lads go into reasonably well paid trade/construction jobs, but most wc women do fairly low paid stuff like beauty, catering, etc. Obv these can be decent careers if you actually start a business.

But that's the same - the likes of plumbers, plasterers, bricklayers etc mostly only earn good money if they're self employed , just exactly the same as hairdressers, beauticians, caterers, etc. An employed bricklayer will earn a lot less, just as an employed hairdresser will.