New course helps launch learners into lucrative career
Green technology is opening up a whole new career path. There is a shortage of people trained to install and maintain solar panels, heat pumps and other microgeneration solutions. Shortages mean well paid jobs.
New Green Course
NEW Career Skills is helping people tap into a lucrative career market with the launch of a brand new course for 2009. The company, recently hailed the 25th fastest expanding company in the UK in The Sunday Times Fast Track 100, is training people to become Domestic Green Engineers (DGEs). There is currently a massive shortage of properly-trained DGEs, whose job it is to help home-owners and builders of new homes reduce their carbon footprints.
All homes being sold or rented in the UK require an Energy Performance Certificate, which tells the owner of the property what the dwelling currently consumes in energy and gives out in CO2. DGEs will be able to show householders how to save money and energy by installing more efficient, green energy solutions in their homes, such as solar hot water, ground source heat pumps and rainwater harvesting. Another vital part of a DGE’s job is to advise builders of new homes on ways of being greener. Under Government guidelines, all new hopes need to generate at least 15 per cent of their energy from renewable sources by 2016.
Salaries for the job can range from £18,000 to as much as £50,000 and with the Government backing funding initiatives, New Career Skills’ Managing Director, Steven Wines, said he was expecting the course to be extremely popular. He added: “Being a Domestic Green Engineer is a pretty safe job to have during this difficult economic climate. The Government’s pledge to tackle climate change means there is plenty of work out there already, with more to come. There are 26 million homes in the UK and when any of these are sold or rented, it will be advisable to use a properly accredited DGE to show them how to reduce carbon emissions and install clean, green energy solutions. The green market is booming, with pay back times on renewable energy installation shortening and with an increasing availability of Government subsidy for home renewable energy projects, we’re forecasting that our fully trained, fully qualified Domestic Green Engineers will be in huge demand.”
New Career Skills’ new course is designed with mature career changers in mind, so it is flexible with most of the work done from home and can be fitted around other commitments. The rest of the course is carried out at one of the company’s state-of-the-art training centres in Doncaster or Southampton. The course can be completed in six months and such is the demand in the green market for DGEs that some candidates have started earning before completing their courses.
New Career Skills, which also offers courses in plumbing and electrics, teaches budding DGEs everything from the basics of domestic plumbing to solar design and installation as part of the course. Students get help finding a job or advice on how to start up their own business when they complete the course.
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