Plumbing Career Pathways

Whether you’re thinking about exploring careers in plumbing, or you’re curious as to how plumbing career progression might work, there are a few different routes that someone in the plumbing profession can take.

Becoming a plumber

With no prior experience in the plumbing industry, people might believe that plumbers have a somewhat limited career path, but that simply isn’t the case. From your first day of training to become a plumber you are presented with a variety of different areas that you could choose to specialise in, including:

• Ventilation systems
• Heating systems
• Air-conditioning systems
• Solar-powered systems

Will I be doing the same jobs every day?

Not necessarily. The role of a plumber can be very diverse, one day you might be carrying out a bathroom repair or boiler check, and the next day you might be working on a design for a new plumbing system in a home or commercial building. It really depends on your skill set and the type of company that you work for.

Plumbing career pathways

There are lots of areas within a plumbing career to specialise in. For example, you could hone your skills in sanitation, drainage or heating, cooling and ventilation.

Specialised plumbing career pathways include:

• Pipe fitter – This role requires you to work in commercial settings fitting pipes for factories or heating and cooling devices in offices, for example. These pipes will transport substances like water and sewage.
  
  
• Pipe layer – As part of this role, you would be in charge of digging and levelling trenches in which to fit pipes.
  
  
• Steamfitter – You could specialise in fitting specialised pipes that carry high-pressure gasses.
  
  
• Technician – If you like the idea of specialising in multiple areas of plumbing, a plumbing technician is the role for you. The job entails working on various aspects of plumbing, including sanitary services, central heating and cooling etc.
  
  
• Gas service technician – This role requires identifying potential gas leaks, repairing faulty gas equipment and installing new gas systems.

As you gain experience, you’ll have the option to progress forward into a wide variety of careers in plumbing, including more senior positions such as a manager or even running your own plumbing business.

If you go down the higher education route you could work towards becoming an engineer which opens up even more professional opportunities.

How can I progress in my plumbing career?

One of the easiest ways to progress in your plumbing career is to acquire new qualifications and skills that set you apart from other plumbers and set you up to carry out a range of duties.

Our Premier Plumbing Course enables you to work across the plumbing, electrical and gas industries. The training in this course covers aspects such as:

• Health and Safety
• Bathroom Installation
• Electrical Principles
• Gas Safety

Find out more about our Premier Plumbing Course >

Alternatively, you could also choose to pursue higher education. With a good amount of prior plumbing experience and a range of qualifications under your belt, you could work towards acquiring a university degree in engineering or a related subject.

Why not take a look at the Plumbing Training Courses available on Access Training Academies, to see how we can help you start, or progress further in your plumbing career?

Click Here to see all Plumbing Courses >