Plumbers earning €3,000: the trade now rivalling engineering

Plumbers earning €3,000: the trade now rivalling engineering

A plumber or electrician with a client base can earn more than a salaried engineer. It is not a dinner-table exaggeration: Spain's State Public Employment Service (SEPE) lists both trades among the occupations with difficulty filling vacancies, and the generational handover is not happening. Scarcity drives up the price. The line doing the rounds on social media — plumbers eating engineers for breakfast — overstates it, but points to something real: the Spanish labour market is revaluing technical profiles that spent decades in second place behind the university route.

What a plumber really earns: employee vs self-employed

The first trap is mixing categories. A first-grade tradesman employed by a company is paid under a collective agreement — metal or construction, depending on the province — and, according to widely circulated estimates, earns around €1,700-2,100 gross per month over fourteen payments, a bit more with overtime and travel. Fair enough, but far from beating an experienced engineer.

It is a different story for the self-employed plumber with a client base. That is where the €3,000-4,000 net figures appear. From that turnover you must subtract self-employment contributions, the van, diesel, tools and liability insurance. And add what nobody sees: getting paid. A professional working for an unknown private customer faces bad debts that a payroll never knows. The engineer's salary arrives on the 30th whatever happens; the plumber's, whenever the client feels like it.

Why the SEPE warns of a shortage of electricians and plumbers

The official diagnosis matches what is seen on the ground. The SEPE's Observatory of Occupations flags the lack of generational replacement and the shortage of skilled labour among the main challenges facing construction, with bricklayers, plumbers and electricists among the occupations with good prospects. Most of those working today will retire in the coming years. Fewer are entering than leaving.

The logic is textbook: when something everyone needs is scarce, the price rises. Plumbing and electricity, moreover, are services that do not disappear with technological change. You can argue over whether a three-month course is enough — one trainer insists it is to start earning €2,000-3,000; the experience of those who have tried it says that in five months you barely scratch surfaces and clear drains — but the bottleneck is real.

The myth of the three-month training course

This is where the optimistic story falls apart. Those who have been through a SEPE course tell it straight: it prepares you for the jobs nobody wants. The real money, say those who know the sector, is in heating, not basic plumbing. And domestic electrics are not the same as industrial, where a fault in a factory with dozens of interconnected panels can drive a technician with years of experience round the bend.

Regulated training, certifications and specific licences remain necessary for certain activities. The shortcut exists for specific skills, not for replacing an entire trade.

Engineering in Spain: degrees you cannot even put on your CV

The other side of the scales has its own frustration. Some people hold double degrees in computer science and telecommunications and have had to erase the word engineering from their CV because companies want vocational training (FP) graduates. It is not just an anecdote: in Spain there is little real engineering work, and with a weak industry the norm is for a graduate to end up doing tasks a technician could cover, paid as one.

Hence the poisonous comparison. If the engineer works as an employee in a shambolic department, with bottlenecks years old and a boss who scares off staff every fortnight, the self-employed plumber who organises his own schedule and charges what he asks looks like a dream. But the fair comparison is employee against employee and business owner against business owner. There, in a normal country, the engineer earns twice as much.

The other side: clients, bad debts and burnout

The trade is no walk in the park. There are plumbers with over thirty years as self-employed who ended up taking home €1,600 a month, fed up with demanding clients, and took a factory job at €1,400 under a collective agreement plus three extra payments just to be free of responsibility. The self-employed's freedom is paid for in insecurity and dealing with the public.

Some also remember the sector's slump in 2010, when these professions stopped being the goose that laid the golden eggs. And others warn that barriers to entry are low: supply can grow quickly if the salary attracts enough young people. Today's scarcity guarantees nothing about tomorrow's.

What it means for anyone choosing a career

The message sinking in among young people is simple: you do not need university to earn a good living. It is half true. Skilled trades today offer opportunities that did not exist fifteen years ago, and the obsession with degrees is starting to sustancia ilegal. But the high salary comes with experience, specialisation and your own clients, not with a three-month diploma.

The prediction, with reservations: as long as the generational handover fails to arrive and construction and industry keep up demand, good tradespeople will keep raising their prices. If supply picks up and the cycle turns, as in 2010, it will once again be those collecting someone else's payroll who sleep soundly. Nobody has a crystal ball, but the pendulum has swung before.