A few questions about the career of an A/C Engineer...

[graezybee]

So far it seems, that you guys work very long hours, for decent pay - 30k ish. I am still really considering this, yet I still dont know enough.

1. Are jobs in demand or is there a shortage?

2. Is it possible to do an apprenticeship first, or is college the best option?

3. Regarding overtime, how much can you make a year just in overtime?

4. To go self employed, do you just need alot of experience, or any qualifications? I read in another thread, a guy was charging £40per hour, this is very good money.

[R1976]

1. Recession means there is less work out there and therefore less jobs. Lots of companies have made redundancies, although they will have trimmed off the dead wood.

2. Apprenticeship is the best way as experience is a must.

3. Depends on the work available, if you are into refrigeration then service work always seems to be busy and installations in supermarkets only seem to happen at night due to stores not wanting to close.

4.You need a mass of experience and the money can be good but the amount of non productive hours put in means you'll probably be on minimum wage.

£40 per hour for one person seems a bit high, although I don't know their overheads.