A new recruitment drive co-ordinated by the National Apprenticeship Office will add more than 100 instructors and support staff in Education and Training Boards (ETBs) across Ireland over the next six months. Are you looking for a change of pace, a part-time job, or a new opportunity? If so, you can enhance your career and help apprentices reach their potential as a craft apprenticeship instructor.
As a new year approaches with new career opportunities on the horizon, there has never been a better time for experienced tradespeople looking for a new and exciting challenge to move their career from the construction or manufacturing site to the classroom, and train Ireland’s future skilled workforce at their local ETB.
Qualified tradespeople understand the value of laying the groundwork for the next generation. This is a great opportunity for those with valuable experience, skills, and transferable real-world advice to enter the public sector, benefiting apprentices of the future.
There are many reasons that skilled workers in construction and manufacturing may seek to make the move into apprenticeship training. It could be the desire to gain a steady reliable role in the public sector with flexible hours, a need to gain greater work-life balance, or a yearning to pass on valuable skills to the next generation of talent.
If you have the right industry experience and expertise, there are a variety of flexible full-time and part-time training positions available at your local or regional ETB to suit your situation.
What are the benefits?
- A competitive salary with the opportunity to share your passion and gain a fulfilling career training the next generation of apprentices.
- Excellent work-life balance, with structured regular work hours.
- The opportunity to become a teaching and training professional, with public sector pay rates and a public sector pension.
- Access to progression and continuous professional development opportunities to advance your career in teaching and training.
- Interesting and rewarding craft instructor roles available across construction, training future apprentices in areas that include electrical, plumbing, carpentry and joinery, pipe fitting, engineering, motor mechanics and more.
- Joining a network of skilled people who are ready and willing to get you up and running as an instructor with training opportunities available.
- Generous annual leave: 25 working days per year, increasing after five years’ service.
- Tax-Saver travel tickets and access to the Bike-to-Work scheme
Join a talented network
Marc Nagle is a craft instructor in refrigeration and air conditioning at Cork College of FET, Bishopstown campus. After returning home from Australia a few years ago, having worked many successful years in the refrigeration and air conditioning trade, Marc Nagle has come full circle. He has stepped back into the training centre where he first got his grounding, now training the new generation in the industry.
Commenting on the top-class training facilities and rewarding opportunities of this career, Nagle says: “Everything has been modernised now. The industry is constantly changing. There’s new equipment, and massive money being spent and put back into the workshop. Whoever comes in to train here in the future will use top-class equipment. Being in the position now to be able to pass on the experience that I’m after getting in the field outside to the new apprentices coming through, it’s exciting times.”
Neill Rahill, craft instructor in pipe fitting at Louth and Meath ETB says there are many benefits to working as a craft instructor: “As a tradesperson, once you have the practical knowledge, you will have confidence, you will have the self-direction. The job gave me the ability to promote my skills. I started my business at the time and I was doing those competencies in my own job, and I was able to use those experiences in the workshop. It’s very, very rewarding when you can see a candidate or a learner start with no skills and watch that person develop.
“There are a lot of positives, it’s a secure job, it’s a public service job, and the pension is good. The craft apprenticeship instructor is a platform to further your career.”
Go to apprenticeship.ie where you will see all of the information on the roles available including salary, terms and conditions and where you can apply today for your dream craft instructor role with your local ETB
