‘I’m done with management, now plumbing’s my life’ (From The Northern Echo)

‘I’m done with management, now plumbing’s my life’

12:13pm Thursday 29th December 2011 in Features

As a leading academic says white collar workers are doomed and the only way to enjoy a secure, rewarding career is to learn a manual trade, Ruth Campbell talks to a former jet-setting senior manager who has retrained as a plumber.

JUST a few years ago Nick Roberts wore a smart suit to work every day and carried a laptop and briefcase full of paperwork.

The award-winning Newcastle University graduate was the European director of engineering in a huge, American car company.

He drove an executive company car and flew to Europe – usually Frankfurt, Munich, Turin or Rome – three times a week and to the US for business strategy meetings every two months.

Today Nick wears practical work overalls and carries a toolbag instead of a briefcase. Rather than being glued to the keyboard of his laptop, his hands are more often wrestling with spanners and wrenches. And he drives his own van to work, around the leafy lanes of North Yorkshire.

Nick is one of a growing band of highly educated professionals who, after being made redundant in the midst of recession and a shrinking job market, has had to rethink his working life. After struggling to find work, he briefly relocated to New Zealand before returning to Britain and deciding to retrain as a plumber, as well as taking courses in plastering and electrics.

Although he earns less than half what he did before, the experience has been a revelation. For Nick, now his own boss and working, “handson”

with things that are real and tangible, has discovered the sort of job satisfaction he never knew before.

Nick is a shining example of what academic-turned-motorcycle repair man Matthew Crawford refers to as “human flourishing” in his book The Case for Working with Your Hands: Why Office Work is Bad For Us and Fixing Things Feels Good.

In fact, he has never been happier.

“Work is more rewarding now. You are offering people a service, making a real impact on their lives,” he says.

And the high salaries of the corporate world are no longer tempting: “Working for someone else, the risks are too high. My job now does come with its own stresses and pressures, you quickly learn the importance of customer satisfaction, reputation, the value of money and how hard it can be to make a profit. Still, I wouldn’t go back.”

The father-of-three is also enjoying seeing more of his family now that he works locally. “By the time my eldest, Emily, reached 18, it felt as if I’d hardly seen her.” Hannah is now 17 and Alex, 14. “I am still working long hours, but I am not away. It has given family life a tremendous boost.”

Underlying all of this, after years of feeling vulnerable in the job market, Nick acknowledges the importance of regaining a sense of security – something American philosopher Crawford argues few white collar workers can expect to enjoy any more.

Crawford, regarded as one of the most influential thinkers of our time – Education Secretary Michael Gove and universities minister David Willetts are among the biggest fans of his book – learnt a practical skill himself after becoming disillusioned with his working world of academic think-tanks.

White collar work in developed countries is doomed, he says, pointing out that the role of accountants, architects and other professionals can easily be outsourced to highlyskilled people in China or India who charge much less.

BUT if you need your house rewired in Newcastle, or your drains unblocked in Middlesbrough, you are not going to call a tradesman in Bangalore or Taiwan.

When Nick, 52, joined his plastering class, he found it a humbling experience.

“I was mixing with young guys from completely different backgrounds, straight out of school with no qualifications.”

Nick, who took A-levels in maths, physics and economics, graduated from Newcastle with a first class honours degree in mechanical engineering and was awarded the Vickers prize for the top student in production engineering. He was one of a small number of students to be sponsored by Rolls-Royce, ultimately winning a highly coveted place on the company’s fast-track professional graduate training scheme.

“All my working life, I was surrounded by graduates and stuffed shirts. When I first joined the plastering course, I did wonder ‘What am I doing here?’ But I really enjoyed it.

“I realised just what valuable skills the others had to offer. They were people who worked really hard and had a huge contribution to make. I do get frustrated when the rest of society doesn’t value this.”

He recalls his early professional life, designing engine components capable of withstanding particular stress levels at Rolls-Royce. “It was quite frustrating, looking back, sitting in an office with 90 engineers, all sitting in front of computer screens, writing programmes, printing out masses of paper.”

He eventually went to work for an American multi-national, designing car safety equipment. After being sponsored to do an MBA at Newcastle University, he took on senior management roles in business planning and strategy.

The company, Breed Technologies, had grown huge through acquisitions and Nick’s work, which now involved IT management, was becoming increasingly specialised. More and more, Nick’s job was dictated by the vagaries of the turbulent financial market, where stock market prices and short-term, year-end results were all that mattered.

By the time the company went into administration, Nick was among a worldwide staff of 50,000 made redundant.

Initially, he embarked on a fruitless search for jobs in the same field in the UK before working as a consultant and being offered work in New Zealand.

AFTER six months, his wife Alizon, daughter Hannah and son Alex joined him. Emily, who was about to take exams, stayed behind with grandparents. It wasn’t ideal and, after finding it difficult to settle, the family returned home.

“It’s one of those life-changing moments when you think: ‘What do I really want to do’,” says Nick. “I thought – this isn’t bad, it’s a gift.”

He missed the practical side of engineering and wanted to work with his hands, as well as doing something for himself. After enrolling on a plastering course, he spent six months qualifying as a plumber at the MPK training school in York. Including course fees of more than £6,000, it cost him about £25,000 to set up in business. For the first two years, the financial rewards weren’t great, but his wife, Alizon, has been hugely supportive. “She can see the value of having a practical trade.

And to begin with, it’s all about investing.”

He knows he has the potential to grow the business, which he set up in 2006, to the point where he can earn as much, if not more, than he did before.

Recently, he has branched into renewable energies and is now expanding into work with biomass boilers, ground source heating and solar panels, as well as the more traditional forms of heating such as oil and gas.

He has had letters from school leavers wanting apprenticeships and hopes, one day, to be able to take one on.

He agrees with Crawford when he says too many youngsters are going to university without thinking about what they are doing. Plumbers, after all, are in short supply. Media and sociology graduates, not so much.

“I wouldn’t mind if my son doesn’t want to go to university. I would encourage him to do a practical apprenticeship and value it as equal.

There is no point in going to university for the sake of it,” says Nick.

When he looks back on his previous working life, he feels he was on a treadmill, with few tangible results for his efforts. “There was so much drudgery, and no real satisfaction.

You are so small in a big company.”

Now, he says, he is solving real, practical problems. One customer endured a constant, irritating noise from their heat pump for years until he sorted it out. Now they live in peace and quiet.

Another client had underfloor heating that never worked properly and no-one was able to fix it, until Nick sorted out the problem. As temperatures plummeted last winter, they enjoyed a warm house for the first time.

“When it was freezing, people were so desperate. I came back home knowing I had made a real difference to their lives. They were so grateful.

I never got that before.”

nick@ncrplumbingandheating.co.uk Also Yorheat Ltd. Tel: 01765-650410; 07770-845 174.

• The Case For Working With Your Hands by Matthew Crawford (Penguin, £8.99)

Working with your hands

• UK Trades Training – provider of accredited practical training courses,, including tiling, plumbing, bricklaying, plastering, joinery and business start-up. uktradestraining.co.uk, Unit 1, Shaftesbury Avenue, South Shields, Tyne and Wear, NE34 9PH, 0191-454-7733

• Gateshead College runs adult apprenticeship programmes across Tyne and Wear. Tel 0191-490- 2246 for course information and advice gateshead.ac.uk/news

• Learndirect operates a network of more than 750 online learning centres in England and Wales. These provide flexible learning for adults wanting to improve existing skills or to learn new ones. Courses cover a range of subjects, including management, IT and Skills for Life at all levels. learndirect.co.uk