Posted By: Jonti

Posted By: NRDiggerI can also just add that as a random domestic customer, we have a huge shortage of tradespeople in the UK, at least near where I live. I would be amazed if you struggled to find work.

That is because as a country we have been pushing the mantra of university being the only thing that matters and those who work with their hands are all doing it because they are simply stupid plebs.

That and Brexit sent all the polish plumbers home

<blockquote><cite>Posted By: SimonD</cite>Hope that helps.</blockquote>

Very helpful. Thank you SimonD :)

Posted By: JontiTrue, but you have to ask why did we need so many 'polish' plumbers in the first place!

For much the same reason you (UK) import nurses, doctors, health care workers, brickies, chippies,...........

IMO you start with the education system then look at society pressure.

The UK is not alone with this respect, e.g. Sweden imports more than 50% of its doctors.

Surely the term 'working class' is a bit difficult to define today. One definition is a person who derives their income solely from wage or salaried employment - but that covers most of the adult population, (I guess the 'working class' were always in the majority, supporting the 'upper class'). Perhaps a better definition would be blue collar, white collar and pink collar - (a new one for me, apparently nurses, care workers beauty industry and jobs that use to be regarded as womens work) but even here things get blurred

Oh and when plumbers and electricians can take home more than a civil engineer things start get upset.

Posted By: Peter_in_Hungarythe term 'working class' is a bit difficult to define today

More useful is to think of 'underclass' - the mass who one way or another get punitively little of society's product.

'Punitively' because there's a large dose of sentiment that It's their own fault; these are people who deserve little, in fact need a dose of punishment as incentive to become useful citizens.

The traditional defence of 'working class' excludes this 'underclass' as undeserving because largely there's diminishing work for them, or only the most exploitative work. Those with 'good' work, regardless of whether manual or based on

Posted By: Jontian academic qualification

look like a middle class.

Posted By: Jontithe party who was always harping on about representing the working class was the party who placed zero value on them

That's nothing to do with that party's promotion of education, rather that it can't modernise to support the real underclass rather than an obsolete 'working class'.

Seriously, you are right that Labour has abandoned, not the working class, but the underclass. By persisting with the traditional 'working class' thetoric, Labour has ended up supporting what is now really a weakly diferentiated 'manual' sub-section of the middle class, which holds the full set of middle class values and beliefs. You are calling for better status, craft education, trade competence etc for the 'manual' section of the middle class - it's a delusion to still claim for that section the virtues of the old working class.

Do you really mean that Labour's fault has been to promote education, and this has been the cause of the

Posted By: Jontilack of appreciation of the trades and crafts

of the 'manual' middle class?

It's a bit rich to blame Labour for the high esteem that University education holds - all parties and most middle class people agree. Doesn't Labour's view of education include HNCs and neglected apprenticeships, which Labour and maybe Libs nowadays strongly support (tho not effectively when they were in power)?

Loads of work in this space.

There is LOTS of communal heating over here and a SHORTAGE of people with a clue about how it works. Every new build apartment building in London since 2010 has been on communal / district heating for planning reasons.

They are now switching from designing gas boiler / gas fired CHP heat networks over to heat pump supplied heat networks. No qualifications required whatsoever. If you have a clue (most in the UK do not) then you will have work.

As an employee £40-80k depending on how much you want to hold tools or tell people how to hold tools. As a contractor your gross takings would be £300-1000/day depending on how specialist your skills are and how much risk you want to take. (working 'dayrate' or 'jobrate'. What is the catch? London. It's pretty much all in London.

Drop me a line on marko@meterpoint.io and I'll happily introduce you to some people working in this space. Maybe you want to some contracting work before you make any permanent moves.

(my day job is the energy metering infrastructure on these heat network schemes; with most of the kit we are instlalling coming from kungsbacka or halmstad)