How’s your colour vision? If you can tell your red from your green and engineering flicks your switch, you could have a bright future ahead of you as an electrical engineering technician. You don’t need a degree to get started. You can, however, take further training to become a qualified electrical engineer when you’re ready!

Variety is everything in electrical engineering. You could power up by installing giant turbines, light your career path by putting street lighting networks in place, or lift off with lifts and escalators. What will YOU choose?

Is there something you’d like to know about engineering careers? Maybe we can help!

• DID YOU KNOW? You can get into these careers with T Levels!
• What types of engineering are there?
• Engineering jobs you can do without a degree
• How school STEM clubs help you build engineering skills
• See why engineering students are in demand for construction careers!

See more

Useful skills to put in your CV:

• Good problem solving skills and an enquiring mind – you will use mechanical skills, electrical skills and a bit of common sense and logic to install electrical equipment and keep it ticking over.
• Good organisation skills – a good work person never blames their tools, so you will always pay attention to the state of your kit and the safe way in which you use them. Health and safety matters a lot when you’re working with electricity!
• Teamworking skills – you will often be working in a team taking guidance and direction from a line manager who knows the job inside-out. Soak up what they know and aim to stay positive in the workplace! As you progress in your career, you’ll also build leadership skills and could end up in a senior role.

Top Skills-boosting Tip

If you work on improving your communication skills, it will help you explain things clearly to clients and customers who don’t have as much electrical know-how as you.

How Do You Get These Skills?

Vocational qualifications and work experience will help you build these skills over time.

Build Your Skills With the FREE Young Professional Programme

School, college and training

In your GCSEs or the equivalent, aim to get passing grades of 9-4 (A*-C) in maths and at least one science. This is because it will give you more options with your engineering career later down the line.

You can then go on to take at least one A-level or equivalent qualification in a topic related to science, engineering or maths. This will be useful if you plan to complete a college course in electrical or electronic engineering before finding a trainee position in a company.

The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), the Science Engineering and Manufacturing Technologies Alliance (SEMTA), and Tomorrow’s Engineers have more information about careers in engineering.

Vocational Qualifications

You can explore doing an electrical engineering HND/HNC.

T-Levels

T-Levels are a choice for learners after GCSEs alongside apprenticeships and A-levels. You can do an electrotechnical engineering T-Level that could lead to employment or progression onto additional programmes like the BTEC Level 4 HNC in Building Services Engineering or a Level 3 Installation/Maintenance Electrician apprenticeship.

BTECs

You can do BTECs in Electrical/Electronic Engineering that will earn you a Level 3 or Level 4 qualification while giving you hands-on experience. You can do these alongside A-Levels or as an alternative to them.

Apprenticeships

An apprenticeship is a scheme where you train while earning a starting salary.

There are all kinds of electrical engineering apprenticeships available, at different levels to suit your level of education. Young engineers are in high demand so if you’re keen to learn, potential employers will love to hear from you.

If you have five GCSEs or the equivalent including English, maths and science, you can apply for a Level 3 electrical engineering apprenticeship (depending on the employer, this might also be called an electro technical apprenticeship).

You’ll learn to install, maintain and repair electrical services and/or products and equipment while receiving training towards a formal qualification.

University degrees and graduates

You can do a foundation degree or degree to become an electrical engineer. These typically involve time to secure work placements so that you can build your experience as well as your knowledge. There are lots of electrical engineering graduate schemes available once you finish your degree.

With time and experience you could take on a leadership role like being a supervisor or manager. You could also move into electrical design work.

Once you have some successful projects and network contacts under your belt you could look into becoming a self-employed electrical sub-contractor.

Work Experience Tips

Any work experience where you have demonstrated your engineering and/or electrical and mechanical skills can help your application. Sometimes it helps just to walk in through the door of your local electrical contractors in the morning and say you are looking to get work experience to see if they can help.

Examples of relevant work experience include:

• Work shadowing (even if it’s just for a day)
• Work placements in a company
• Work experience placements on a college or university course

Work experience tips

Volunteering Tips

Volunteering is an excellent way to build up your skills and CV while making connections with people and organisations who could help you in the future.

If you’re still at school, you can work on your engineering skills outside of lessons to build your first CV. One way is to join a school STEM club.

Search online for “school electrical project” and you’ll see some great inspirational videos and tutorials for ways to get stuck into electrical projects while still at school.

Volunteering tips

Work areas you could specialise in:

• Power generation and transmission
• Industrial machinery and equipment
• Transport
• Construction

As an electrical engineering technician, what don’t you do? You could be working on really specific equipment and setups you’ll get to know inside-out, but the way you think means you can apply the skills and knowledge you pick up in lots of different areas of electrical engineering, if you want to.

Example daily job responsibilities

• Installing turbines, power lines and street lighting
• Making, fitting and repairing machinery and equipment like drivers, motors and programmable logic control panels (PLC panels)
• Upgrading rail and signalling systems (PS – if railways are your thing, you could always be a rail engineering technician)
• Installing and maintaining building infrastructure like lighting, heating, air conditioning, lifts and escalators

To find jobs for young people in this role, search on jobs boards for early career roles and opportunities with these words in the title:

• Electrical engineering technician jobs
• Trainee electrical technician jobs
• Electrical engineering apprenticeships
• Electrotechnical engineering T-Levels
• Electrical/electronic engineering BTECs

You can also take a look at our database of local opportunities to see if there are any relevant jobs, work placements, or careers events and workshops to help you get started.

These websites might be able to help you find electrical engineering experience or a role that’s a good fit for you:

• Find an Apprenticeship
• EngineeringUK
• Tomorrow’s Engineers
• Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET)
• Science, Engineering and Manufacturing Technologies Alliance (SEMTA)
• Engineering Council (ECUK)
• Women into Science, Engineering and Construction (WISE)

These employers all carry our Youth Friendly Employer Mark. We work with them to make sure that they are providing great support and opportunities to young people.

Click on an employer to find out more about them and the youth-friendly opportunities they offer, from work experience and apprenticeships through to graduate schemes.