FAS apprenticeship: To become an apprentice, you must first find an employer and then register with FAS. The new standards-based apprenticeship usually takes four years and follows a sandwich-type structure with alternating periods of training on and off the job.

FAS minimum educational requirements: five Ds in the Junior Cert, although increasingly employers want apprentices who have completed Leaving Cert. The qualification is the National Crafts Certificate.

Post Leaving Cert courses: A number of PLC colleges offer one-year pre-apprenticeship courses in carpentry/joinery as well as furniture design and construction, woodcraft and furniture restoration courses. Check with your local VEC or PLC college as there is no centralised applications system. There are no tuition fees for PLCs and students are eligible to apply for means-tested maintenance grants.

Third-level courses: Galway-Mayo IT: two-year full-time national certificate in technology (furniture design and manufacture) ; two-year full-time national certificate in technology (furniture production)

The college also offers a two-year full-time add-on BSc in furniture technology . This is open to graduates with a merit or distinction in the furniture design and manufacture cert or the national cert in mechanical engineering or equivalent national cert or diploma. Applicants with a national cert and at least one year's relevant post cert experience will also be considered for admission as well as mature students with relevant cognate experience.