To think about quitting my WFH job to re-train as a plasterer?

[confusedlady10]

Would I be stupid or unreasonable to consider quitting my job and re-train in a new field as a plasterer? I am a 29 year old single mum WFH in a dead end call centre job. It’s quite niche as it involves investigating specialist fraud cases but is still mainly a customer service job. The pay isn’t that great (£2k pm after tax living in London) and I’m fortunate to be able to live in cheap accommodation through family, but it’s not sustainable.

I’ve had applied for hundreds of jobs to try in earn more money and elevate, even paid someone to re-write my CV and do an extra qualification in my field within finance. But I don’t have a degree and regardless, I’m struggling to stand out. Hundreds of applicants, countless ghosting's and unfortunatelys after an odd interview. Finance, admin and banking sectors seem to be too saturated whether remote, hybrid or office.

So I was thinking to quit my job, apply for universal credit of some sort (started doing research on what they can support me with) and then hopefully retrain as a plasterer in a course to try and better myself as I heard that there’s good money if you are a skilled labour and could hopefully work for myself or another company. I would hopefully be able to work it around my son and less competition for the jobs I am not getting. Am I wasting my time and dreaming? (I have no experience in this and trying anything to earn more at the moment, whilst still applying for jobs like crazy, pls be nice!) 😣

Insurance is an absolute must.

Also look at laying flooring (parquet/vinyl or carpet). Some of the companies that sell flooring may well be looking for layers, and it is not something that requires a course, they will probably train you (send you out with someone else, often these things are two person jobs).

Once you have the hang of it you can take on independent jobs which will pay better and give you more flexibility.

Tiling is a bit more difficult but probably higher value.

I think I might have to do a course because a lot of companies want experienced people after looking on job boards. I'm in London. 😣

So true. My son just did some plastering for us and I couldn't move the bags of cement whatsoever. Yet alone lift them 😂

I tried to lift a bag of tile grouting, I had to drag it.
You need to be very strong.

Yeah I think plastering course idea is over with for me after reading these, I have to be realistic. I am looking at plumbing, electrician or a painting decorating course now. Or perhaps an apprentice or cyber course. Exploring all of these while still applying for office style jobs. I have a call with a recruiter today too so fingers crossed. Thank you!

Good for you, there is decent money in the course below with lots of options for promotion within a hospital setting starting at €18 for junior level, they're in huge demand in Ireland now that we've many private hospitals and medical centres.
Plus you'll be warm, site work is very male dominate, filthy toilets, freezing cold.
The UK will be heading for private care too as public services continues to fail.
Good luck

Medical secretary courses are available in the UK through various providers, offering online or in-centre learning and leading to qualifications like a Level 3 NCFE CQ & AMSPAR diploma. These courses cover essential skills such as medical terminology, office software proficiency (like Microsoft Office), medical audio transcription, and administrative procedures, preparing you for roles in various healthcare settings.

Ex plasterer here, still pull my trowels out for friends etc.

Plastering is hard graft, as are a lot of trades, but you can't start your set and think, oh I'll just have lunch or take this call, etc. You're basically on it for the next 3- 4 hours. Lots of physical moving about, 25kg bags, 12kg boards etc.

Plasterers are now on very good money, I was charging about £130-150 a day, 15 years ago. I know several lads now clearing £250-300 daily.

The building trade is crying out for tradespeople, and you would probably get onto an apprenticeship. A few of my friends are going this way and are earning 18-20k a year training.

Plastering is a great skill to have, but 5 days a week is graft as you start to get older.

I earn way more than £2k a month looking after dogs in my home, for people who don't like kennels. You need a licence and insurance, roughly £150 each for the year, and you're good to go.

ah I assumed you’d be working in a self employed role. London is ideal for that.

@40YearOldDad thanks for sharing your knowledge and experience of the plastering profession 😊
Would I be right in thinking that very few women would have the physical stature and strength to do this for a living?
Obviously women can be physically strong- for their size. But men are bigger and have a greater capacity for muscularity, especially when it comes to upper body strength.
At least that's how I see it, would you agree?

theres no way around it, it is a physical job, bags of plaster are 25kg and there's a big difference between moving them on and off a trolley in the builders' merchant, to lumping them up a few flights of stairs a few hundred yards from your van. Worst was a flat in a city and the van was too high to park on the residents carpark, two streets away, 5 bags of plaster, ladders, and all your tools. it's a workout.

Thank you 😊
My other half had a friend who was a plasterer, I remember him coming round to plaster our place, with his stilts! I just had no idea that stilts would be involved😅
That was 20 years ago as far as I know this guy had an accident and can no longer work.
You say it's a workout, and obviously it is in the sense of being physically very strenuous. But when you workout in the gym you are careful, you lift things in a way which is advantageous for your body, avoid exercises which can be damaging. If you do it right you can develop a good physique without injuring yourself.
I'd say working in the trades is a rather different kind of work out to a pumping iron style workout!

other ideas - train part time to do hairdressing or barbering then you can work for you self even on top of your current top. Or nails/lashes etc? Or spray tans? Or laser hair removal?

Was just speaking with a local barber at the weekend who said it's actually very difficult to get an apprenticeship nowadays for barbering or even hairdressing. Might just be my local area but just go in with your eyes open with that idea...

I'd say go for it if you're still keen having done your due diligence. Tradespeople are often short in supply and as there are way less women in trades jobs you'll possibly face less competition than in office work in terms of overall numbers. If you can get in with one of the house bashers you can do pretty well. I know some sparkies who've done this and they get a good steady stream of daily work until that development is finished.

I left an office job with good prospects and decent pay to work in construction. I was thinking of doing a trade but first got my HGV licence as I've always fancied it and it was a quick way to jump on a decent salary while deciding if I wanted to learn a trade and which one.

I'm still driving trucks but almost exclusively concrete mixers on HS2. I've also been trained as a backup shovel driver and sometimes cover on that, and will be learning the batching/plant management side next.

Basic salary is around £35k but is massively bumped up by the odd hour of overtime here and there and by bonuses - e.g. £50 bonus if I start before 6am (typically 05:30am). If we do a super early temperature controlled pour starting 3am I'll get another £100 bonus on top, so £150 on top of my core pay. Weekends are paid six hours minimum at 1.5x rate so even if I just do one load like last weekend (an hour's work) I still get paid the six.

Was doing evening work for about eight weeks which I loved. Started 7pm and finished anytime from 22:30-12:00. Was getting a £150 bonus and guaranteed nine hours at 1.5x hourly rate, so was seeing well over £300 for what was often little over four hours work and in bed by 1am with the whole next day free. And we were always stood down on Friday on full pay as the builders travelled home for the weekend.

I'm really glad I did it although it wouldn't suit people that need to get away at a specific time etc. Had been unhappy in my office job for ages. I'll often do 9-10 hours a day but a lot of that is sitting around. Like, I've been sat here on my phone for well over an hour waiting for the concrete pump to be fixed.

We’ve done a lot of work on our house and went through I think six plasterers before we found a good one. I think there’s work out there. It’s not a crazy idea.

Yes but you've got them 24/7. A plasterer can come home,jump in the shower and do whatever they want for the rest of the evening

If you’re getting into fitness, how about training as a personal trainer?

I'd recommend seeking out a woman in the trade to talk to about it first or go into it woth your eyes wide open about the unpleasant, sexist behaviour that remains prevalent.

I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but all the tradeswomen I come across were treated the same as if they were men, in any trade, you'll have people taking the piss and sending you for tartan paint, or a new bubble for the level, etc, that's part and parcel of starting from the bottom.

The proof is in the pudding. I've used many trades once and once only because they have done a crap job. I've also used people fresh out of a two-day plastering course who you'd think had been on the trowel for a decade.

OP, if I were you and you have a genuine interest in the trades, I'd look into a multi-trade. Housing associations generally have a good number of apprenticeships available.

I've worked on quite a few building sites, and am pleasantly surprised to report zero incidents of nasty sexist behaviour witnessed.

It probably helps that I am ancient in the eyes of the younger ones (they often refer to me as "the lady" hahaha), and also that I am an independent contractor in a niche trade, so they don't see me as competition. But I'm working quietly away up on the scaffolding, sometimes hidden from view, and I've never even heard them talking shit about other women.

I do sometimes get one of the older builders offering to unnecessarily carry stuff for me! 😆 If it's necessary though I'll let them do it, but then help them to carry their stuff too.

I've spent plenty of time on sites and yes, I have seen some sexist bullshit - but I've seen just as much offsite too. You come across underevolved, misogynist arseholes to a certain degree in every profession so I don't think that's a good reason to avoid becoming a tradesperson. Nearly said tradesman...

I can see that you are reconsidering the plastering idea after many PPs pointed out that it's a physically very hard job. Of all the jobs done by trades on our house, the one that I personally thought would be toughest to keep up full time for years was plastering.

Along with some other PPs, if you are convinced you want to go into the trades I'd say have a look at painting and decorating. However, bear in mind that what for many is physically easy at 30 might not be the case at 50. Also, you need to look into where the pay tops out - I don't know how much better off you would be unless you went self-employed with all the risks and rewards that entails.

How about thinking laterally? If you like dogs (or could learn to like them), could you offer dog sitting/boarding as another PP suggested (if this would be ok for your relative/landlord)? You could do this as a side income whilst still WFH in your job (as long as you are fully WFH), just to increase your income. If you are reliable and the owners like you, there's often a lot of repeat work. This also does not involve you needing to travel all over for jobs (unlike trades), since the dogs come to you. Good walk in the morning before you start WFH (possibly combined with school drop-off), quick walk during your lunch hour and a longer walk in the evening (poss. again combined with pick-up and extended play on the way home) should fit into routine with a child. It might also open other avenues for later if you wanted to set up as a dog walker, or go into dog grooming. There's a lot of money to be made in providing pet related services if you are good with dogs and owners. There might also be a niche for pet sitting other animals like hamsters etc.

Good luck!

This is my experience too having worked on the mortar trucks for a couple of years and dealt with brickies all day. You do hear some colourful jokes here and there which you probs wouldn't be so likely to hear in an office, but I've never experienced what could be called nasty sexism.

Now I work on the civil side for big companies like Tarmac/Aggregate Industries/Cemex/Hanson/BBV etc, and it's very much about diversity. There's a massive poster of two lesbians in the canteen at AI and pretty much every bit of documentation has a white person, Indian person, black person, and somebody in a wheelchair.

They take it seriously too. The old chap on the gate recently got fired for making racist comments. He'd always been lovely to me but apparently made lots of comments about the Indian drivers. The guy that reported him was his fellow traffic marshall - a massive biker guy with bald head, huge beard, and tats all up his neck.

Always seemed a bit gruff and prefaced almost every sentence with an expletives but obv had the right attitude where it mattered. He explained it as "I told him I didn't want to hear any more of his racist bollocks and I'd report him next time. So I did."