Electrical, Plumbing & Heating

Building services are the best-paid of the site trades, and the hardest to fake: the work is regulated, inspected and certificated, so qualified people are genuinely scarce.

Training is longer than most — three to four years for an electrician or plumber — because you are being trusted with gas, water and electricity. The trade-off is that a qualified, carded engineer rarely struggles for work, and the shift to heat pumps, EV charging and retrofit is adding work faster than the industry can train people.