Career path

[Tremor101]

Hello ,
I am looking for advice in beginning a new career in construction, heavy equipment. The problem is that I don’t know where to start. Have a budget of £1000-2000 for training purposes. I have no experience in the domain but will surely learn. The goal is to reach a stable minimum £20 p/h at some point, given that I will be a beginner I will be earning less and that is where I seek your knowledge. What should I train for and how to gain experience? Almost every employer is looking for someone with experience and is understandable, but how to enter the market ? Any advice is greatly appreciated.

 

[Smiffy]

Hello ,
I am looking for advice in beginning a new career in construction, heavy equipment. The problem is that I don’t know where to start. Have a budget of £1000-2000 for training purposes. I have no experience in the domain but will surely learn. The goal is to reach a stable minimum £20 p/h at some point, given that I will be a beginner I will be earning less and that is where I seek your knowledge. What should I train for and how to gain experience? Almost every employer is looking for someone with experience and is understandable, but how to enter the market ? Any advice is greatly appreciated.

First of all where are you!? Someone might be able to help.
Secondly what are you interested in.
Just money or do you have a passion.
£20 an hour is it paye you are expecting or self employed.
Self employed that is relatively common if you follow the work but expect a lot of down time
Rob put a good post on Facebook earlier about it.
£20 an hour paye in a stable job for a machine driver or groundworker is pretty hard to imagine butit is obtainable if on highway work pulling and laying cable.

 

[Left hooker]

20 quid an hour
Sorry had to laugh

 

[JD450A]

I get £25 a hour.... But I'm f****ng awesome.

 

[Tremor101]

First of all where are you!? Someone might be able to help.
Secondly what are you interested in.
Just money or do you have a passion.
£20 an hour is it paye you are expecting or self employed.
Self employed that is relatively common if you follow the work but expect a lot of down time
Rob put a good post on Facebook earlier about it.
£20 an hour paye in a stable job for a machine driver or groundworker is pretty hard to imagine butit is obtainable if on highway work pulling and laying cable.

Appreciate your answer. I’ve always been interested in working with heavy equipment but couldn’t for different reasons. I live in West Midlands, wolverhampton. I guess it’s good either way in the beginning paye or self employed. For example in my area a 360 operator in an add on t jobs is payed between 19-21£ But I requires experience. Regardless of the equipment how does one get experience? Where can I see the mentioned post ? Thanks

 

[Tremor101]

20 quid an hour
Sorry had to laugh

It’s always great to have a good laugh

 

[Tremor101]

I get £25 a hour.... But I'm f****ng awesome.

That’s great ! Maybe il get there some day !

 

[Gunners]

As Smiffy says, we need more info to be able to help you really. You may have heard of people being paid £20/hr and even more in this game and it is possible, but these are rates being paid to guys who have years of experience in the job, you could teach a child to drive a machine in a day, but how to approach jobs when its wet, work smart, tidy, move muck the least amount of times - this is what earns you the rate. There's a lot more to it than just being able to drive it. The best experience is found by starting on the ground with a shovel in your hand, working with an experienced gang. Doing the sh*t jobs, watching how they work, how the machine driver works. 5 years of that and you could be on the right path to being a decent machine driver. Good thing with this route is the firm you work for will most likely pay for your ticket.

Or you could do a CPCS course for £1500, join an agency and get booted off every site until you find one where they just want someone sat there loading the occasional lorry.

Two ways to earn experience - neither are easy, both take time. The rate only comes with experience so take your pick I guess. You have to start somewhere.

 

[JD450A]

Right long and short.

If your over 28 forget it.... Zero point in attempting to learn principles and realities once your over that hill. It takes weeks to learn the digger but years to learn the realitys.

HS2 gives you a huge range of opportunities to work for some truly s**t firms.... but there clambering for drivers.... Lynch, Flannerys and others to name but a few are desperate to fast track whatever gullible fools they can find into the drivers seats.

Reality is most operators are on between £15 - £20 hr..... depending on calibre.... rare to be over the 20's........ I get it because I'm not just a driver.

 

[Bri963]

Don’t let the age thing put you off if you’ve got a background with any sort of machine operating. A lot of good operators come from farm backgrounds, but that’s not the only way in, though it does help a lot. I’ve seen truck and forklift drivers come into this game with a good attitude, and get on well. Forget this idea that there’s a set age beyond which you’re wasting your time, it’s down to flexibility in how you learn. That said, it isn’t as easy to totally change course at 40 as it is in your 20’s, but again it isn’t impossible. Don’t set yourself a wage before you’ve even started, as that just sounds unrealistic and you’re setting up for a red face when reality kicks in. As Rory rightly said, eventually you need to bring more than pulling levers to the table before the money kicks in. Concentrate on learning the trade properly, and yes, working a pick and shovel is part of the apprenticeship.

 

[Smiffy]

Appreciate your answer. I’ve always been interested in working with heavy equipment but couldn’t for different reasons. I live in West Midlands, wolverhampton. I guess it’s good either way in the beginning paye or self employed. For example in my area a 360 operator in an add on t jobs is payed between 19-21£ But I requires experience. Regardless of the equipment how does one get experience? Where can I see the mentioned post ? Thanks

What you have to remember about adverts like that is that it will be self employed ad not continuous work you will be dropped at a moments notice without being paid the shift mucked about non stop and generally unless you have a very Very good reputation not have a very good time of it.
Realistically it probably equities to about £160-180 for a good full time operator.
And there is massive variance.
I work on the roads, I spend most of my time digging round utiltys, it means I'm very slow in comparison to others on here and can't grade to there standard as it's a completely different work both takes skill. I also run the sites and drives the lorry to site, both of which is in reality worth more money.
As has been said by JD above if you want top rate driving a machine is part of it. You need sssts ,smsts nrswa or a million other acronyms. Basically you make more money telling others what to do than you would being told what to do.

 

[JD450A]

As has been said by JD above if you want top rate driving a machine is part of it. You need sssts ,smsts nrswa or a million other acronyms. Basically you make more money telling others what to do than you would being told what to do.

Or just have a nack for sarcasm and wit.

 

[Chase Building]

Hello ,
I am looking for advice in beginning a new career in construction, heavy equipment. The problem is that I don’t know where to start. Have a budget of £1000-2000 for training purposes. I have no experience in the domain but will surely learn. The goal is to reach a stable minimum £20 p/h at some point, given that I will be a beginner I will be earning less and that is where I seek your knowledge. What should I train for and how to gain experience? Almost every employer is looking for someone with experience and is understandable, but how to enter the market ? Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Why heavy equipment?
How old are you and do you have any experience in construction yet?

Quickest and easiest way for you to learn will probably be working for a small landscaping or civils firm locally.
You’re probably only going to get the chance of using <3t machines but you’ll see a lot more that way than by going through card schemes etc.

 

[Smiffy]

Why heavy equipment?
How old are you and do you have any experience in construction yet?

Quickest and easiest way for you to learn will probably be working for a small landscaping or civils firm locally.
You’re probably only going to get the chance of using <3t machines but you’ll see a lot more that way than by going through card schemes etc.

To be honest I never understand why so many operators clamber to drive 13t+ machines, in my experience minis seem for the most part to be better wages and more interesting work. The interesting stuff on the big kit seems really elitist

 

[doobin]

Why heavy equipment?
How old are you and do you have any experience in construction yet?

Quickest and easiest way for you to learn will probably be working for a small landscaping or civils firm locally.
You’re probably only going to get the chance of using <3t machines but you’ll see a lot more that way than by going through card schemes etc.

This 100%
Find a local outfit who don’t care about tickets. Turn up on time, listen well and take an interest. Get stuck in.

 

[Jimoz]

URGENT - FORKLIFT DRIVER NEEDED IN GLOUCESTER

Hodgkinson Builders Ltd are a Derby based property developer with projects all over the UK. We are currently looking for an experienced forklift driver to work on a project in Gloucester.

www.planttalk.co.uk

 

[Jimoz]

Telehandler might be a good path some of the clowns I've seen driving can't be a hard nut to crack. The good ones get looked after. The one on site I'm on atm been on 19 years. Only high 15s an hour but holiday pay, share incentives maybe a bung from the brickies for operating the silo etc etc

 

[T whiting]

And whatever materials you want for work at home and a brekkie every Friday

 

[Furniss]

Dont let age put you off you can do whatever you want if your willing to graft ... I was 28 when I started in the job - did 7 years for a good little firm with very mixed work- started on the ground and then moved onto machines (mainly small as more varied and enables you to learn a lot more than sat on a 20tonner muck shifting ), learnt a lot there before going on my own and now after some graft and dodgy years financially have a good going on ...plenty of work, yard and decent mahinery.

I will never forget the first morning I walked in the yard one of the blokes said and I quote "that pasty faced fucker wont last 3 months"

Carve your own path

 

[Quattromike]

We had a guy in asking for an apprenticeship last week. He just showed up at the door, caught me a bit off guard, I thought I'd give him a chance just for trying and showing up. I asked if he had any CV or references as he was maybe 18 and non local he could have been anyone. He said he had CV on computer but not with him. No problem I said just send it in or email something through. Got an email later that evening from him saying he can't find his CV so had listed some details, his name, age and town he stayed, not street address just town, saying he'd been working in forestry but having health issues with pollen and has to give it up.
I've no idea what school he went or grades achieved, previous employer or anything. I thought if serious he'll phone or come round again and I can get more information but so far nothing. A bit disappointing to be honest. If you can't put the effort in why would anyone put the effort in for you?