Hi all. Am new to the forum. Some of what I will be discussing has been covered in previous threads but I feel my situation is a bit more unique.
I am an individual who has worked for the civil service for the past 20 years (am just shy of 40) and am looking for a career change. In my spare time I am also a property developer and over the past 15 year have done quite nicely off renovation and have a nice little property portfolio. I am now in the position where I only have to work part-time. However I hate my job and it has always been ambition to learn a trade which would earn me a living and also give me a skill which I could use when renovating / maintaining my houses.
Gas had always interested me. I have used for the past 10 years a local guy who pretty much does all property maintenance and have become friends with him. He does everything from fit bathrooms and kitchens to full central heating fittings and repair. However whilst he's fully competent he's never bothered doing his gas safe and does the bulk of the work and then his mate who is gas safe registered comes in and checks his work over and signs it off. He's done this for years and has fitted 3 boilers for me personally which were all signed off. I use a separate gas man for my landlord certs and services and he's always said the work my guy has done is good.
Recently I've been expressing to my maintenance guy that I am unhappy in my work and would like a change of career. I would also like to work for myself, be self employed and have the flexibility to work as and when I choose. I suggested gas as an option.
He suggested to me that I go and do the training and then we could potentially do some work together with him being experienced in fitting systems and me being gas safe to sign it all off. The plan would be for me to do an intensive course, get gas safe registration and get myself a van and tools. I'd would do servicing and landlord certs to fill my time and on bigger jobs we'd go together.
I am in a unique position that I only really need to earn around £1200 per month to tick over nicely so don't really need to be bringing in loads of work. My maintenance guy has also sorted it out for me to go and potentially work with his gas safe mate who is retiring within the next few years who is willing to let me go with him if I feel I need more experience at any point.
I have found a company on Birmingham called options skills. They run an 8 week intensive course and then put you with a gas safe engineer for a period of around 6 months to do your portfolio. You then come back to the test centre and do some more work before gas safe come out and check up on work you have completed. They have guaranteed that they will work with me until I am at the point that I can work independently on gas appliances. They said it will take approximately 8 months and they are involved in the whole process and guarantee you a local place with a gas safe engineer to complete the portfolio (which I have read can be an issue).
Everything seems to be in place for me to start the ball rolling and my path into the trade looks to be reasonable. But it's a big decision to quit my job and I am aware the risks are huge. The nagging feeling I have with these intensive courses are that they seem too good to be true. I am aware of the criticisms of them and that they leave you quite inexperienced and that employers won't touch you. However I am not looking for experience as this will be something I will get once I have got qualified. And I am not looking for employment as I plan to go self employed.
Given all the negative posts on intensive course on here, given my circumstances, on this occasion would doing a intensive course actually be a good idea?
Thanks in advance for anyone taking the time to reply.
