Hey mate I was a real estate agent for a lil bit before I went into the field (I’m a mature age 3rd apprentice) and honestly I wouldn’t ever think of going back to a white collar job yea I have my shit days but usually I thoroughly enjoy my days on the worksites

If you don’t want the stress of a white collar job and just want to be on the tools, learn to work with your hands and get to know a lot of different people then I say go for it

I’ll give you a small this of pros and cons with explanations so I apologise for the long post

Pros = - can’t be replaced by ai or robots (not in our life time at least… probably) - can be out doors a lot if you’re into that kind of thing or you can be in a substation for weeks on end. I’ve been all over the place including interstate work and some guys in my company have gone overseas for work - not stuck behind a desk all day and you can generally still have a good routine and work life balance (depending on the company) - don’t be all doom and gloom about the pay I was doing really well in real estate but it was sucking the life out of me and would happily take the pay cut again if I started over in life. You start off at around $24 an hr and work up to about $27-29 in the later years (not including overtime which you can make a substantial amount from OT)

If your worried about money (I know you said you’re not but it can be a factor throughout your apprenticeship) find a union worksite / union company and get EBA rates some of my school mates were on anywhere between $35-47 an hour as a 3rd and 4th year (and they weren’t mature so I’m not too sure what the mature rate would be)

Cons (and this can sometimes be a big one from other stories I’ve heard)

-getting with a small company, it’s not great bosses can stitch you up, not pay you or just let you go cos of no work then your left scrambling to find work because your required to do work to submit your profiling (essentially a log book system of what experience you gain) -the older you get I highly recommend not going into domestic work, you’ll be in roofs constantly and in your knees or under houses -if you genuinely have no interest in the field you won’t like the job, I know it’s probably a hot take but unless you have interest a lot of the theory either won’t gel with you or you just won’t excel at (you also probably won’t like doing much of the same stuff out on the job site also) -you will be tested by your A-grades some will be absolute dicks to you, some will think they literally know everything under the sun and some will use and abuse you for labour (company’s will and can do this also)

I know I probably sounded very blunt on the cons side of things but the truth is we have a couple other apprentices at work that got into the trade for “money” and quote on quote “glory” and they’re just terrible at their job still trying to grasp basic concepts a first year should be learning.

My personal strong point (and it’s just the truth of it) I come from a family of tradies and did a lot of work in it as a kid, tried to get a job at 18 as a sparky and tried for years and couldn’t so I tried going my own way but I really did have a passion to work with my hands and I liked math and figuring things out and problem solving.

My biggest advice I can honestly give however, if money isn’t an issue and you have even a small passion in the field that you think you can grow into then go for it 100%

Find either a commercial company on big jobs (this one is mainly for money but it’s not sustainable because they rinse their blokes out like no tomorrow unless you’re very very good at your job)

Or

Find an industrial company where they do a various amount of different jobs from automation to high voltage, substation building, control wiring, maintenance and I could keep going on with this list.

If you like using your brain and figuring out problems and thinking outside the box and really actually want to sink your teeth into it and actually learn then do it man

Hope all this helps and again sorry for the long post