Not sure where to put this - can anyone advise or help us with dp and work/study options

[CharleeInPantoPaperChains]

I will try to keep this as short as possible.

DP is currently at a job that he is good at but it is very repetative and is not in the field in which is interested in he took the job to support me when i fell pregnant with ds1 and has just never left.

He is a wizard with computers, he can build them from scratch repair them with his hands tied behind his back and can do anything when it comes to building websites ect.

But he is self taught he has no qualifications.

He would like a job in pc repair so we thought the best thing to do would be to get some qualifications under his belt and then apply for some jobs or maybe start a small bussiness doing it on top of his current job (he only works from 9-2 at the moment)

The problem is we simply cannot afford for him to do a home course or a collage course as they are to expensive.

Is there any other options for him to get into this line of work that isn't going to cost us a fortune?

Many local authorities have adult education evening classes and some no doubt cover this type of stuff. Such courses are generally free or very cheap. Depends where you live in country. If you google shropshire adult education (insert own county of course) you will usually find a link.

The courses he should be looking at are the ComptIA courses. These are the industry standard in things like hardware and networking.

Has he tried speaking to a company he would be interested in working for?

No he hasn't, he thinks he will just get turned away if he has no qualifications, he thinks if an interview came to him ora guy with qualifications he would have no chance.

don't think he has anything to lose approaching places directly. computer programming is a substantial part of my job, but all my skills are entirely self taught (but this is academia, so may be different). even if they say they require qualifications, they could tell him their preferred route to get them. so he'd be sure he was doing something directly useful.

Not sure of this, but maybe he could get taken on with someone and then get qualifications under Train 2 Gain as we were offered this at work - apparently if you don't have any qualifications higher than level 2 in your "chosen field" of work, irrespective of general qualifications, we could get funding for it, so it costs employer/employee nothing!
We have staff doing NVQ2 in Sales and have done warehousing and stuff - I'm pretty sure they have A levels and stuff anyway, so if this is an option for computers; then this would be a way for your DP to get a job and free training??? We had a computer training company nearby called Cerco that trained you on a short course at their offices then helped you find a job after - you took out a career loan with the coop or something to pay for it. It might not still be in business as they called in the administrators recently, but there must be similar ones round the country??
We have loads of companies ringing up offering us funding to train staff for various things.