Should Gas Engineers Be Upskilling? w/ Harry Budd

There's more people who are losing jobs, unfortunately. Having this skill gap, like I said, creates a safe career path, really. Some offer online courses, which we don't like the sound of at all. We don't do any online courses.

Why is that?

We try and tell people, like, really think about, okay, it might sound great that you can learn a trade online, but— or they have like blended learning where it's like half of it's online. You're at the peril of the training provider, of the actual quality of content that they're providing you online.

In a sentence or two, what Why should people care about this conversation?

I think people should care about this conversation because the industry as a whole, the gas industry, as well as the wider trades businesses, it's a competition at the end of the day. And upskilling yourself gives you more services that you can offer.

This is the Gas Engineer Podcast. I'm your host, Taluk Priest, and today I'm joined by Harry Budd, who works at Logic for Trading, one of UK's leading trading providers for gas plumbing, electrical, and renewable courses. Welcome to the show, Harry.

Hi, thanks for having me.

Today we're talking about training, upskilling, and future-proofing in the gas trade. This includes exploring the gap between training and the day-to-day work, as well as when and how you might consider upskilling in an ever-changing industry. As always, if you enjoy these conversations, then please like and subscribe to support the podcast. But what do you mean by upskilling? Let's say you're a gas engineer, you've been doing it for 20 years. What, like, how would you actually upskill and, you know, what would be the benefits of it?

Yeah, so upskilling for a gas engineer would be, say, if you've completed your CCM1, your sort of initial ACS qualification, it's then, well, you're legally allowed to work on certain appliances within the gas. So if it's somewhat, it's your boiler, but you won't be able to work on, say, cookers or fires for 12 months after. So once you've got some experience, you can come back, you can upskill to train on those domestic appliances. But essentially, you can then upskill even further into, like, the commercial sector. That's commercial heating, laundry, catering. But then you can also upskill into renewables like heat pumps. It doesn't have to be in any particular order once you've sort of got your initial CCM1. It really depends on what you, what you as a business, if you're a sole trader or as an employee, actually want to, your company wants you to sort of specialise in.

You know, there's quite a bit of talk about renewables, heat pumps, etc. How, I don't know how quite to phrase it, but how much, what's the time commitment if you were thinking about possibly upskilling into heat pumps?

So, and then a heat pump course, you can get them as little as 3 days, which some might look and go, well, that's not a lot. But a lot of actual manufacturers provide courses on their specific heat pumps, so you can actually go to the heat pump manufacturers and have a specific specialized course on that heat pump.

Okay, yeah.

So if you know that you— that's what you're going to work with, that certain brand, it's probably— once you become qualified through like a course like we offer. Um, it's actually—

so they need to be qualified with you first, um, or, or a similar provider, and then they can go to the manufacturers?

Yeah, yeah, uh, that's right.

Is there a big overlap between the two courses?

I think the course that the manufacturer provides probably goes more into like the sort of the fault, um, the components within the heat pumps. Like, different manufacturers will produce slightly different ways of doing.

Okay, so more sort of specific to that particular, um, manufacturer?

Yeah, where our sort of course will be more about the, the theory behind it, like how heat pumps work, um, how you would then install it, what changes you may need to make if depending on the property or the system that has been in there before.

Okay, so you can give more of a kind of a, um, a general kind of advice or, or guidance, etc.? From your time at Logic4Training, what's kind of— how's the training kind of changed over the, over time?

Well, I think where we've been operating for 23 years now, I think, obviously the industry evolves, there's new regulations that come out, so we want to make sure that obviously our learners are aware of those regulations, that we cover them extensively. But also newer technologies have come about, so stuff like your, your product, if we can integrate some of that into our training, it makes it easier for engineers to actually carry out their jobs more so on the admin side. But then that allows them to really focus in on, on the actual day-to-day stuff that they will be doing with their hands, the practical stuff.

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So would you say that your courses cover more, like, not just the actual, um, how to actually do it, but it's starting to cover a little bit more about not running a business, but just kind of, you know, other things that kind of come into play as well?

Yeah, yeah, so we obviously do the main bulk of it is the hands-on practical training, but we do provide resources for and guidance for our learners of how to set up a business if that's what they want to do. Well, it's like the marketing side, social media, so that if they do decide to go down the self-employed route, there is something there that they're not just sort of left there like, oh great, I'm qualified, but what do I do now?

Like, how, how do I get my first job, etc.?

Yeah, so we do, we do try and over the years developed more and more content that people can, can take in to sort of help them progress. Um, I think starting is prob— like starting off their career is probably the hardest step once you've become qualified, unless you're going self-employed, unless you're going employed. Yeah, you're kind of left there or previously they might have been left there like, "Oh, what do I do?" Do you have a kind of recommendation or like which route do you see that students are more successful?

If they go into like employed first for like a period of time or kind of straight into self-employed?

Yeah, I personally, I think that becoming employed first after qualification is probably the best thing to do, mainly because you're then there, you're probably, you may be working with someone else who has years of experience. And whilst our trainers have many years of industry experience, it's not maybe specific to that company.

Plus there's a limited amount you can actually know without— yeah, you know, within the time frame of the course.

Yeah, so being able to gain some real-world experience before you can then have the, the conversation with yourself, okay, right now, is it now the right time to, to go self-employed. Yeah, I think that's probably the best way, way forward. However, it's not to say that that's the only way. If you do want to go, if you are someone who's fairly confident and, you know, and you are competent at what you do, you definitely can come self-employed after qualifying.

There's often a perception that training ends after your ACS. Why is it additional learning now more essential than ever before?

Oh, I think like how I touched upon at the beginning is that businesses, it's a competition at the end of the day, and upskilling yourself gives you more services that you can offer. Yeah, it also breaks up what you actually want to do day to day, and I can imagine that— I've done a year as a gas engineer's apprentice, not apprentice, but sort of workmate. I can imagine that after 5, 10, however many years, it can get a little bit repetitive, you're doing the same thing. So upskilling also offers you as a, a person something new and exciting to go into, um, but ultimately you are able to expand your services, um, and provide more for new and potential, um, and potentially sort of, uh, current customers.

Mhm. There's kind of talk about a skills gap between what training, training centers teach and the real world, um, What are your kind of thoughts, or what is the skills gap?

Yeah, so the skills gap, um, I don't necessarily think there's a skills gap between training providers and colleges and then the real world. There might be— there's obviously— it's hard to, to train anyone, um, doesn't matter what industry. The training and what you're doing on a day-to-day basis, it's always going to be different. Um, so we try and provide real-world scenarios that, that people can actually learn but also make mistakes so that when they go out into the real world they have that experience to then fall back on and be like, okay, right, while I was with the trainer I made this mistake, but this is how you rectify it. Instead of having like some other types of courses where they might have bigger classes, so you have less contact time with the trainer and you don't actually get to rectify the mistake. But this, coming back to the skills gap, the skills gap is generally more— there's essentially, there's less people coming into the trades than to meet the demands of what, say, the government want or companies want. There was a, there's a company called On the Tools. So last year they done this massive 100+ page paper looking into the skills gap. And essentially, to very, very briefly summarize it, it's some 100 pages. Yeah, yeah, it's a big arse. But essentially it comes down to there's not enough promotion of the trades at any age. Predominantly, in my opinion, the best way is to go to schools to promote the trades, that this is a viable career path.

And how would you promote it?

Yeah, it's hard, um, obviously because schools will want to— ideally want people to go through the academic career path and go to university. But personally, I think if you're looking at the current state of employment, that— sorry, there's more people who are losing jobs, unfortunately. Um, so competition for the traditional desk-type jobs is more competitive, uh, where a trade— there's— where there is a skill gap, there's a huge opportunity to actually then be in a career that's actually quite prosperous.

Yeah, I think with AI, as a gas engineer, you were pretty safe. You know, it's very unlikely that AI is going to come and take your job.

Yeah, yeah, I couldn't agree more. There's— so we're quite heavy, we've quite heavily pushed AI recently and how the trades are actually quite safe from it. Um, I, I looked into it, and not to be all doom and gloom, but I think 2027 could be a year where sort of AI's— AI reaches the level of superintelligence. And unfortunately, there will probably be more job losses. But having this skill gap, like I said, creates a, a safe career path, really. Um, not only because there is that gap, but also AI can't squeeze into a tight space to fix something or go into a loft and be crammed up there trying to do some work. So I do think, yeah, becoming a gas engineer or, or just any tradesperson is probably quite a good career choice.

Why do you think less people are choosing it? Is it because they're not aware of the actual trade itself or Is it how it's portrayed or like, where do you think the challenge is?

Yeah, I think those two points are probably the two main ones. I think the perception of it is, oh, you're going to get your hands dirty, you might not want to do it. I think especially with the development of the internet, especially younger people see, oh, there's this YouTuber or there's streaming or there's other, they can, I don't know, they could day trade if they really wanted to. If they had the capital there in the first place.

But those careers you mentioned, it's a bit like a singer, you know, like the top 0.001 do really well and then the other struggle, you know.

Yeah, it's not for everyone. I think you have to be, yeah, you have to be very lucky, I think, to sort of make it. Like if you want to be a sports personnel.

Yeah, it's a similar kind of, yeah.

Yeah, so there's, yeah, I think there's the how it's portrayed, but also going back to sort of the school roots, it isn't really spoken enough from an earlier age so that people actually fully understand what being a gas engineer consists of, or what being a plumber or electrician consists of. And I think you'll find that maybe people who, who aren't as academically focused at school, that could be a good option for them. Or if you like, just prefer working with your hands, I quite liked DT at school, but that it kind of stops at D DT.

What do you mean by DT?

Sorry, so like Design Technology.

Okay, was that hands-on or was that like more on the drawing side?

So more hands-on, more like predominantly woodwork, but okay. But if I feel that's a good way that curriculum could be developed, they could expand on DT to then incorporate some, some of the trades within that at a very basic level to just so that younger kids—

so just kind of like a hint of, you know, 'You know, try this, you might like it too.' Yeah, exactly. Kind of a little bit of a taste, yeah. Yeah, because you don't really hear about the trades being promoted as a viable option.

No, no, yeah. I think there's many other careers that people go, 'Oh right, this is what you sh—' some people, 'You should be doing,' or 'You might want to do.' But yeah, I know people within the trades industry who are doing perfectly well for themselves and actually enjoy their job. Definitely.

Well, I I think as a, um, you know, a sole trader or owning a, um, a heating plumbing company, you know, there is some— there's, there's really a lot of good, you know, obviously there's a little bit of stress, there's a learning curve, there's other bits, but there is some, you know, really good things as well.

Yeah, um, yeah, there are, like I say, some downsides too.

It's a trade-off like all things.

Exactly. Um, and that's, that's ultimately what people have to they need the knowledge in the first place to be able to decide, is this the right—

yeah, it's the right choice for you. What's your advice for engineers deciding when and where to invest in new qualifications?

Uh, yes, good question. Um, if you're split into sort of two groups, if you're a new entrant, um, obviously look into—

like, are you talking about school leading or more like changing, um, career?

Yeah, like sort of changing career, maybe. So I don't know, 20-plus, let's say, you probably want to research the 3 main careers. You want plumbing, gas, electrics. Um, see which one interests you the most, but then also look at what training providers offer. Yeah, so some might be weekday courses, some might be weekend courses, some offer online courses, which we don't like the sound of at all. We don't do any online. Why is that? So there's a lot of risks associated with online training, but specifically with the trades. You're doing a hands-on, or you're training for a hands-on trade.

You get a bit online, like via video? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, you—

okay. We always say to people, if you had two engineers turn up at your house, one learnt online and one learnt in a training centre, and done.

Do you want to explain what your training centre is? Because you, you know, you have the boilers on the wall, you've got the, you know, everything there, so you're actually doing it for real.

Yeah. Oh yeah.

So we have— and you've got gas as well. I understand.

Yes, so we have, we obviously have our classrooms where towards the start of the, the course people would mainly be in the classrooms, uh, learning like the underpinning theories as to what they're actually going to be doing. Um, but yeah, then we also have our workshops which have, there's numerous amounts of boilers, um, if it's in the gas sort of sector that people will work on, do tightness tests, flue rigs, so you work, understand what to do with the flues, and they'll do some boiler fault finding. The commissioning process, pipework process, calculating pipe sizes. We go through everything that you would sort of need as a gas engineer. Yeah. So yeah, you can't, you can't really learn that stuff online. And that's what we— unfortunately, there are training providers that do push the online sort of side. And I think because of COVID where people didn't have access to that, more of these types of courses came up. We try and tell people, like, really think about, okay, it might sound great that you can learn a trade online, but, or they have like blended learning where it's like half of it's online, you can learn from home, which again sounds good, but half of it will be in center. But yeah, you're at the peril of the, the training provider of the actual quality of content that they're providing you online. And if you then, when looking at what training provider to use, if you generally look at their negative reviews, a lot of the negative reviews for these training providers are about the quality of course online course content.

Okay, so it's kind of challenging with that format. Yeah, it's—

you're never going to replicate actually being there doing it, and to have a seasoned expert right next to you that can tell if you're struggling with something, they're there on hand to help you actually correct things, to kind of ask those questions.

Yeah. Over time, what kind of trends are you seeing? Are there more people kind of going to renewables and to gas, electric?

But what kind of patterns do you see? So specifically with reassessments, so for the experience at gas engineers, with the sort of sticking with COVID where there was—

For the gas engineers, do you get to, is there a larger number of new entrants or is that sort of, is that kind of staying level or is it going up or down?

We're sort of seeing more people, they enter as a plumber, they would do a plumbing qualification first and then they move to gas.

Okay, so they're plumbing and then they move, yeah.

Yeah, um, that way then they can— they've got both aspects that they learn.

Do they learn it straight away, or do they kind of— is it they do plumbing and then they do real world for a while and then come back?

Yeah, so they would do the plumbing. They could do a plumbing diploma first, then depending on what training package that they, they have, they can go then to gas, or they can do their plumbing NVQ, which then obviously incorporates real world work, which then they have to document So you got a portfolio.

Yeah. Okay, fun. So it's similar to the gas then?

Yeah, it's, it's very, very similar. It's almost like it's just sort of split into two instead of the gas, which is all one where they would do the training and then straight into the portfolio, which is sort of included in that training course.

I see.

Um, but yeah, we've probably seen more people, um, take up the plumbing because you can do the gas by itself. You don't have to do the plumbing. Yeah, there's two sort of routes for the gas. There's like a new entrant route completely no experience, and then there's an experienced trades route. So this is more— this is geared to more like plumbers or kitchen fitters who have sort of transferable skills, um, and they would have to come in and actually prove that they can do what they say that they can do, um, with our set exam assessment. Okay.

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But yeah, I think more people on the new entrance side do the plumbing first. On the experience side, with COVID they've where everything had to shut. It's 5 years ago, and obviously ACS qualifications have to be reassessed every 5 years, so there is sort of a rush.

Okay, so there's a bit of a bulk there.

Yeah, yeah, which isn't a bad thing for us as a provider, um, but that also applies to other— if they— if it's an engineer that already holds commercial qualifications, they would also be coming in to reassess those depending on when things line up of when they've done their qualifications. I think heat pumps is sort of a steady incline.

So is it slowly increasing? Because I know the government's quite keen about it. There's a lot of talk about it, but there doesn't seem to be, like, when you actually look at the ground, about how many are installed, etc.

Yeah, this comes back to the skill gap sort of issue. Yeah, the government want one thing, and it's having the engineers there to do it in the first place. There is an uptake in heat pumps, but not— I don't think it's to the same or to the level that people probably thought it would be.

But I think also from the, like, the, for the general public to know, the impression is that, you know, if you have an older house, it might not be suitable. And, um, you know, there are some challenges. So yeah, I think there's, it's more than just lack of engineers. Yeah, the whole retrofitting sort of scene is, is, is tricky, uh, and expensive.

And Yeah, I know that the government are coming out with ways like the Boiler Upgrade Scheme or Start at Home schemes so that people can get heat pumps for cheaper prices. Yeah. But yeah, if your house isn't designed for it or it's not to the level that it needs to be, it can be expensive to then go and do all this work to get it to that level. So as a customer, I completely understand why they would go, well, I could just stick with a boiler, get a new boiler. And it will still be cheaper. I understand why.

Yeah, and less risk as well. Yeah, especially if you have a Victorian or something like that, you know.

Yeah, pretty hefty payout.

Yeah, yeah. So fine. In your view, what are the kind of the most important qualities or mindsets beyond, you know, like technical knowledge where engineers kind of thrive in the business, um, or in the trades?

Yeah, I think probably the most important one is being calm. Um, obviously there's— there are some risks to the gas in working as a gas engineer or plumber or any of the trades. So yeah, being calm is probably—

are you talking about like physical risks or, um, what kind of risks?

Yeah, physical risks or running a business. Yeah, yeah, yeah, sorry, there's two, two sides of it. We haven't really touched on the business side too much, but yeah, there can be a lot of admin processes that people have to they don't necessarily think about when they—

Well, they signed up to be a gas engineer, they didn't sign up to be an admin person.

Yeah, but again, that's where your guys' product can really help people take away that burden and allow them to focus on what they actually want to do. But yeah, if they can remain calm, and I guess another one would be forward-thinking about planning, they can really then give themselves time to work on what they actually want to do. With the jobs that they get. If you're all over the place and you've got, oh, I've got Sam calling me up wanting to do this day, and then Jim wants to do the same time, and you're not prepared for it, it can be then a bit overwhelming. So yeah, being calm, make sure that you're planning everything that you're sort of wanting to do.

Yeah, so just that organization. Yeah. Well, thank you very much for coming on the show. Really appreciate your insights, and, um, yeah, we look to seeing you again. Thank you. Thank you.