Ceiling Fixer (Apprentice) - Tyron Vella

Tyron Vella,
Age 23

Qualifications
Working towards NVQ Level 2

What were you doing before?
I went to college, did two years of a degree, but decided to start work instead of completing it. I started work as a real time analyst for O2, but I really didn't enjoy the office environment so I applied for an Apprenticeship.

Before I was generating a lot of reports on business performance and number crunching - it turned out that it just wasn't for me.

What do you do day-to-day?
Usually when we're starting a new job we'll go on a site induction to cover all of the Health and Safety elements and to get a feel for the scale of the job. Then we'll meet with the Site Manager and or Supervisor to go through the drawings, I'll get put on a particular section of the project, collect all the materials I need and then set about marking up as per the drawings. It usually takes a couple of days to get a ceiling up, depending on other contractors like working with the Air Conditioning fitters, Electricians and the like.

Good bits and bad bits about your job?
The hours change, so some days you could start really early and get finished just after lunch, other days you might only do a few hours. I like working in different places and working away for a few weeks at a time - I can be in Cardiff one week, then London the next, it's very varied.

The bad side of it is that it can be very hard physical work, especially when you're new and training you end up doing all of the fetching and carrying. Also in the winter when you've got two jumpers and a fleece on and you're still cold, it's not very nice. But you get to know a lot of great people and try out the different burger stops around different sites!

Where would you like to take your career in the future?
Hopefully I'll move on into quantity surveying, it'll be back in the office, but you get to work out on site as well, eventually though I'd like to run my own business, you earn much more that way.

I want to learn all that I can right now about as many trades as possible, next year I'll be qualified as a ceiling fixer, dry liner and partitioner. But they're always willing to put you through training and on courses - the career progression is very good.