Is Retrofit Training Worth It?
There's a shortage of retrofit fitters and assessors. Training centres have the same courses but with wildly different pricing.
Imagine for a moment, you are one of the thousands of people who are considering switching to retrofit work or starting a career from the bottom up.
Retrofit is a growth industry, with demand, jobs and people needed to fill it.
You're in an ideal position to make a difference to the future of the planet, but when you look for explainers, to understand how to qualify in retrofitting. It's not easy to find how to do it.
Or what courses are any good.
Let's take one example.
The starter qualification Level 2 Award in Understanding Domestic Retrofit.
If you copied that, and entered it in a search engine.
You might get this course in your results. Here's the payment basket.
As the listing shows, it costs £695 + VAT and is awarded by the AIM organisation.
(If you watch the video on the page it states the awarding body is the NOCN organisation - it's either AIM or NOCN)
And yet. The same course, the Level 2 Award in Understanding Domestic Retrofit is provided by a different supplier. It is, in March 2024, Free.
Which one of these courses we have used in this example should you take to begin your journey? Both awarding organisations NOCM and AIM are Ofqual approved.
They are approved for use in the retrofit pathway to assessor - so actually they are both good. It's just the price that's different.
This sort of confusion isn't going to hold off the retrofit employees we need by 2030. But it isn't going to make things easy either.
The often misquoted Cheaper Bills and Warmer Homes report of 2022 shows us the demand for new, trained people is going to be barely achievable;
So why does organisations like the Unyte Group offer their training for free? I asked the Managing Director Jamie Bartley.
Why?
He responded;
“If we are serious about scaling retrofit nationally then we need to ensure we maintain the lowest barriers to entry for people to join the sector, something the Unyte Group are very much supporting.”
Looking again at the next level of course up. The Level 3 Certificate for Retrofit Assessor, you could pay;
- £1300+VAT
- £600+VAT with a CITB grant or
- just £300+VAT
Is retrofit training worth it? Well it si but you could be a bit skinter if you choose the most expensive provider....
SO here's the rub.
If you do the work, you can get qualified to Level 5 in retrofit for just under £900. How? Knowing your grants and schemes to apply for.
And because there is nowhere else that has this in a consolidated list.
We decided to get off our backsides and consolidate a course list for anyone who wants to get qualified.
With some handy hints for funded, assisted and grant funded courses.
If you're a building company and want to get your team qualified, or change career yourself. Sign up and get new courses and funding in to your inbox now.
The centralised national resource, The National Retrofit Hub has a list of retrofit courses you can work through. They don't endorse the courses.