how much do plumbers really earn? (retraining)

[newstart1234]

My DH want to retrain. He's middle-ish academic in an engineering field at a good uni. Everything is going well I suppose (plenty of funding) but the work is dissatisfying. Everything is a fight to make it happen. Lots of extra unpaid work. Very very long hours. His current job involved building a lot of processing equipment so his practical skills are there to build on. (He has almost no interest in teaching unfortunately. He teaches now but only what he absolutely has to)
He's thinking of throwing in the towel and doing plumbing - he's a practical guy and thinks this job would be more satisfying on a day to day level. How much do they earn, and the general conditions - if there is anyone who has direct experience - google isn't helpful because it doesn't give context. Eg, hours, geographical area, work reliability, particular challenges (physical or intellectual). Thanks. We are NE england.

hopeful bump :)

No idea, but my friend with a good professional job ( accountant, very senior, high salary) also said he wanted to become a plumber. I think it must be a mid life crisis profession for some white collar men!

probably quite a variation depending on whether you work for someone else or have your own business?

my plumber has two kids in private school though.

My plumber charges £48ph + VAT

Only obvious costs Van & Equipment

He starts at 8am finishes at 5pm (unless there is a dire emergency) and always has a long waiting list.

My partner is a plumber. (Midlands) He works on site and also does private jobs in his spare time. From working he earns between £2,500-£3000 a month after tax. He dosnt do a lot of private work because we have small children but it usually brings in a further £300-££500 a month. Although I will say that he's been doing it since he was 18 so 10 years. It takes a while to qualify and be good and fast enough to earn good money. So to answer you're questions about £40,000 a year before tax

He has got mid life crisis vibes right now 😅

On the other hand, he's always been a bit inclined to a practical job.

If you do emergencies rather than general jobs then you can earn approx £150 an hour (that includes VAT).

general plumbing jobs etc is no where near that.

self employed is were the money is, not being employed by someone else.

there are a number of overheads though like a van, decent tools, work uniform, insurance, Gas Safe yearly registration fee (if you go into gas, as that’s were the money is really in the winter).

also if Gas Safe, then you have to retake your exams every 5 years.

then there’s advertising costs etc.

its the 24 hr emergency work were the money is, general jobs not so much.

be prepared to be very quiet from April until Sep, so you need to save to accommodate this.

Other costs also include insurance and the time it takes to attend and quote for jobs which you may or may not end up getting

I guess if someone runs a business employing others then the salary might be better. Mind you most tradesmen I know ask for cash in hand so they don't pay tax. Your salary is going to be much higher if you don't pay tax!

Could he not go into industry as an engineer? Might be less of a bumpy ride financially and shed the sloth like pace of HE.

Thank you. That's around what I had expected, a decent salary with potential to earn extra in 'spare' time (limited with small children). Can I ask, would you say it's a stressful job? If so, what makes it stressful?

Surely he should be investigating this, not you?! How much do you earn and how long can you support him in retraining?

Depends what kind, domestic earn less and it's a grottier job. DB works on high end new build residential and office type developments in London, so site work. He can earn up to £1000 a day between him and his partner but he does some specialist stuff and they seem to get paid per unit rather than an hourly rate. I think he earns about £70k these days as he never works weekends and building has slowed down a bit. Pre COVID there was more demand for his skills and he has a good reputation so he could name his price.
He's 40 and already saying he can't do it forever because of the impact it has on his knees.

Also I wouldn’t go for gas, I would go for heat pumps.

It can be when site managers and directors are breathing down his neck to get things sorted for inspections, often call his early in the morning to give him instructions for the day before he's even out of bed but that's the nature of the job I guess, they want it done yesterday 😄 but generally he's quite happy, he works along side a few good mates and I often joke that he's been pissing around all day when we tells me about his day. Although I know he's not I'm only joking.

DB trained when he was about 19 so doing it about twenty years

I'm trying to work this out right now. How much would he expect to have to earn to compensate the family for our drop in income while retraining. I earn around average. I think he's sold on the idea, but I'm 'checking his workings'; I want to understand what it would mean for the whole family.

Our domestic plumbing firm charges £60 an hour, this is on the high end on my area.

previous plumber - own company employing 2 others - owned a Range Rover when they were still elite cars, holiday villa , lovely house etc. Retired from the practical stuff and lets the employees tick along in his business.

current plumber - runs a fleet of vans - so employees a few others- again holiday home, hired castles for weekend weddings for his 2 daughters etc.

I didn’t know either of them when they started up, but I have known one of the current plumbers staff for about 25 years and he does alright, and is a pretty happy soul.

Oh ok. That's interesting thank you. My DH is 38. He's physically fit but it's good to know that knees might be an issue. His knees are fine now but yeah good to know.

It depends on if he works 9-5 or provides a 24 hr emergency service as to whether the impact on the family is significant.

most people have gas rather than a heat pump so that’s were the money is.

people will need their boilers fixing and servicing for many years to come yet, we never get asked about if we fix or install heat pumps.

Yes I agree. Making the jump is scary for him. I think he thinks plumbing is a safer bet. And possibly wants a complete change of lifestyle. But midlife crises maybe.

DH retrained about 8 years ago and finds this much less stressful but physically demanding and very hard on the knees. He is self employed, and was a domestic plumber (with gas safe) for the first few years, he took home about £50k per year after costs, working 6-8hrs a day, weekends off.
He's now moved into construction, and has taken on 4 other plumbers and an electrician, earns about £120k but its long days (14hrs+) away from home most weeks and some weekends. He loves it though, still finds it less stressful than his office based role. It was the best decision for him but was expensive to retrain and a lot of uncertainty about income, as it's not guaranteed.

DH is a self employed plumber and has been doing it since he was 17/18, took him a good 7-8 years to want to go out on his own and build up client base/trust but he is never short of work and usually has his work booked 9 months to a year ahead with slight wiggle room. He prefers doing personal high spec bathrooms and luckily is in such demand he can pick and choose the jobs he takes. He is gas trained (does it every couple of years) but doesn’t actively choose that kind of work.

He earns 45k ish. We are in the South. Since we’ve had children he never works weekends and is usually home by 4.30 unless something unexpected crops up. Some days he finishes early and does the school run. He has general flexibility being self employed so if the kids are poorly, or me, he can take the time off, but he doesn’t get paid and he has to juggle things a bit.

He is happy in his work and it isn’t mentally taxing at all for him. He’s got lots of connections in other trades from his years in apprenticeship and working for others, he trusts them and they support each other; this network is invaluable and as your DH will be a newcomer to a trade he may struggle initially to gain that.

However, he has been doing this a long time now, he is in his thirties and has started to consider what else he could retrain as because he physically cannot do it forever. He has already had knee surgery in his twenties! It’s physically very demanding. They make good money for tradies but it takes it out of them
so many plumbers retire early or train someone to take on their business.

A bit like your DH, mine is starting to think what else he could do. His lifelong dream was to be a vet and I fully support him doing that but he doesn’t want to spend years going to university to then only do his new career for about a decade before retiring 😂 He is so clever though, physically and mentally capable I don’t for a minute think he couldn’t do it if he wanted to.

We are debating him going part time and me retraining once our littlest starts school and being the main earner (I currently only do two days in a job I hate…) It’s tricky, we are all working for so long these days I actually think it’s perfectly natural to see your decades left in work stretching ahead and thinking you want to change whilst you’re still young enough to! Good luck to your DH hope he achieves his goals!

Thank you so much. My take home is that the knees are going to be an issue for him. If he'd started younger he may have had a good client base/business experience that he could be moving in towards now. He may have missed the boat for that and be setting himself up for a painful 15 years start up time.

The stresses he's trying to avoid is job insecurity that he has now, and also long long hours. It is incredible to think of finishing at 4.30 most days. I just can't imagine it. In academia it's not uncommon to work well into the night most nights (people on MN say they can be successful in academia without long hours but it must be so uncommon - I can see from my DH emails that his colleagues are emailing each other well past midnight regularly). It's something you are not something you do. But yeah his midlife crisis might be leading him to question that now. There are positives - the work is very flexible, it can be done anywhere anytime (aside from teaching), but that leads to overwork in almost all cases and makes the competition immense if you want to hold a normal 40 hour week. But maybe a plumber is not the right alternative for him.

A vet sounds like a great choice, but really punishing financially to get into later in life, I'll have my fingers crossed for a lottery win for you!