CAREER PROFILE

What does a Plumber actually do?

The honest version — real salaries, real hours, real entry routes. From the CourseThread Career Atlas.

Starting salary — log in
Mid-career salary — log in
40–48 hrs
Typical week
AI: Low
AI vulnerability

The short version

Plumbers install and repair the systems you only notice when they break — water, heating, drainage. It's the trade with the most honest emergency economics: your leak at 11pm is their premium rate.

The pitch: chronic UK shortage, real self-employment margins, and a built-in upgrade path into low-carbon heating as boilers phase out. The catch: the work is physically awkward and genuinely dirty at times, the qualification takes 3–4 years, and Gas Safe (needed for the well-paid gas work) is a separate legal bar.

Entry routes that actually work

  • Plumbing & heating apprenticeship (Level 3) — the standard route, employer + college.
  • Gas Safe registration — the legal licence for gas work; where the real money is.
  • Adult NVQ + plumber's-mate route — realistic for career-changers who find an employer.

Read the full guide — free

The complete Plumber profile — salary by year, honest day-in-the-life, AI vulnerability breakdown, and the exit-path map — is in the Career Atlas. Log in to read it online or download the PDF.

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Free account. No card. The Atlas is free to read and download.

Inside the full guide

Money & progression — salary bands by level, sources cited
Day in the life — a real Tuesday, not the brochure version
AI vulnerability — what AI does, can't do, and how the role is changing
Exit paths — where people go at 2, 5, and 10 years

Compare with

BricklayerElectricianCarpenter & JoinerPlastererPainter & DecoratorRooferGroundworker / Civil OperativeQuantity SurveyorSite ManagerBuilding Services Engineer (M&E)