Don’t get taken for a ride by Rogue Trainers

It’s long been true that too many of those who aspire to join our industry as an electrician are unaware of the correct training routes and don’t know where to start. 

With so many courses on offer, and no professional regulation of the term ‘Electrician’, it’s easy to see why so many people are confused about which training route to take. We have all heard of ‘rogue traders’, but our industry also includes a small but harmful number of ‘rogue trainers’. 

Many of us have heard stories of prospective electricians who have fallen foul of training providers who don’t deliver what’s promised, presenting a range of courses which sound impressive to the inexperienced, but which on inspection don’t lead to qualified status. Rogue trainers can have a huge negative impact on those looking to enter our sector and some trainees are conned out of thousands of pounds and with little to show for it, even if they complete the course on offer. 

To address this serious issue, TESP, the Electrotechnical Skills Partnership, has launched a new campaign to raise awareness of the risks when looking for electrical training. Alongside the campaign, TESP also signposts how to find the right courses and providers. 

Under the strapline ‘Don’t get taken for a ride by Rogue Trainers’, TESP has taken a creative approach to draw attention to the problem of rogue training. In the campaign, a prospective electrician is drawn into a veritable house of horrors with claims about training and qualification which then turn out to be not all they seem. The campaign, which includes a short video, social media and website activity, uses a series of red flags that highlight what to look out for when researching a training provider’s claims.

Way to go…

TESP has also produced Top Tips for choosing a training provider, while TESP’s Industry Approved Training Routes, launched last year, can advise people on not only the paths to avoid, but also give unequivocal guidance on the correct qualifications. Visit www.the-esp.org.uk/ to find these resources and more.

Quite simply, our industry needs all the properly qualified electricians it can muster. It’s therefore harmful, not just to those involved and their families, but to our industry when keen and potentially able recruits are diverted away from suitable industry training, perhaps for ever.  

We encourage everyone in industry to promote the ‘Don’t get taken for a ride by Rogue Trainers’ campaign across their own networks, to help ensure that potential recruits to our industry are not taken down the track that too many others have unfortunately followed.    

Visit the new TESP campaign at: www.roguetrainers.co.uk

The Industry Approved Training Routes are at: www.electricalcareers.co.uk/joining-the-industry/training-routes/