Fire Brigade, Ambulance, Police, NHS & HM Forces Discounts

Career Change


A Career Change has often been accomplished after Plastering, Tiling, Decorating & Handyman Courses at The DIY School.

Career Change is sparked by many events in life including work boredom, mid life crisis, illness or redundancy.

Dentists, Print Company Owners, HGV Drivers, IT Specialists, Sales People, Soldiers, Bankers, Police Officers are just a few of the hugely diverse careers against which The DIY School customers have turned their backs. They and many others, have gone on to build brand new businesses as:-

Plasterers
Tilers
Decorators
Handymen & Handywomen

How can I learn enough in 4 days to make a living?

The skills that we teach on our courses are carefully selected on the basis that:-

  • They are in demand.
  • Together they enable you to tackle the majority of jobs in the private or domestic sector.
  • That it is reasonable to expect trainees learn the skills to a good standard.

Many time-served Tradespeople use a very small number of their skills to complete the largest proportion of jobs that they tackle. Also the development of new materials and building techniques are enabling "finishes" to be achieved with fewer skills.

Some examples.

PLASTERING - Plaster boarding has meant that plasterers much less frequently use solid wall plastering techniques. It is these advances that enable less skilled individuals to successfully fulfil that demand without a degradation of the quality of finish.

TILING - Tiling jobs generally include common ceramic tiles for shower rooms, bathrooms and kitchen walls which are easy to work with and sufficiently in demand upon which to build a business.

DECORATING - Most people who engage a decorator do so not because decorating is too hard, it is not, it is simply becasue they neither have the time or inclination to do it themselves. Our decorating course has enabled many people to set up decorating businesses to serve this demand.

Do you require a qualification?

Some of the trades are very heavity regulated. To work in them require clear qualifications and ongoing monitoring. These include

  • Gas - regulated by Gas Safe
  • Electrical - Regulated by Part P Regulations.
  • Plumbing - Regulated by Water Authority Regulations
  • Window Fitting - Regulated by FENSA or your Local Building Control.

However, providing that local authority building and planning regulations are not contravened it is possible to provide,

  • Plastering
  • Tiling
  • Decorating
  • Joinery
  • Bricklaying
  • Handyman

remedial work without qualifications. Most people employ these services based upon recommendations rather than qualifications.

We have come across many very bad time-served individuals whilst we know of many good tradespeople who are well trained in what they do and deliver a much better service.

We always recommend that our trainees appreciate that whilst they are well trained in the skills that we have taught, but that they are not time served. This means that those jobs that demand the time served skills should be left to the time served or experienced individuals. An example of this is External Rendering that is a hugely skilled job that can go very wrong in inexperienced hands.

For more advice call us on 0161 956 3000.