At East Durham College, our apprenticeship team works with construction firms around the North East to offer apprenticeship opportunities in carpentry and joinery.
If you're the kind of person who loves working with their hands, completing projects and working hard, this could definitely be the industry for you.
What Do Carpenters & Joinery Apprentices Do?
In short, carpentry and joinery is all about working with wood.
Both carpenters and joiners are massively important to the construction process, and are often employed by housebuilding firms to help with building of new properties.
A joiner is the person who 'joins' together different types of wood, hence the name. This may, for example, be constructing wooden roof beams into the correct shape, or creating a door frame. More specialised work might have you creating such things as tables, chairs or cabinets.
Joiners tend to work more 'behind-the-scenes' in the workshop rather than out on-site.
Carpentry, on the other hand, focuses on larger elements and tends to be out on-site.
Carpenters will usually work with the wood that may have been previously prepared by a joiner, and they're usually responsible for fitting the components or using them to create something else, like roofing.
Carpenters will work more on-site than joiners.
Earn While You Learn
Tradespeople can earn more than £50,000 a year, according to research from the Federation of Master Builders (FMB) 2020. The key statistics are:
- Bricklayers, carpenters and plasters can command an average day rate of £175, equating to £53,200 a year.
- Some tradespeople are paid up to £275 a day for their work.
- 53% of construction bosses are struggling to hire carpenters/joiners.
Of course, as an apprentice you won't earn that much straightaway, but you'll earn an apprenticeship wage while you're learning on the job. Your employer will be responsible for ensuring you learn the skills you need to become a competent carpenter and joiner, and you'll be supported with regular learning at East Durham College too.
Register your interest in an Apprenticeship
If you can’t find a current Apprenticeship vacancy below that you are interested in, please use the short form further down the page to register your interest with the EDC Apprenticeship Team and they will contact you as a vacancy becomes available in the area(s) you are interested in.
Apprenticeship Vacancies
Please check out the live Apprenticeship vacancies below that are currently being advertised with some great organisations we are working with.
If you haven’t used the www.findapprenticeship.service.gov.uk Opens Government Apprentice site in a new window before you must create an account Opens Government site to register in a new window to apply. Creating an account allows you to:
- apply for an apprenticeship or traineeship
- track your apprenticeship applications
- receive alerts about new apprenticeships
To find out more information, please call the Apprenticeship Team on 0191 518 5508 or email apprenticeships@eastdurham.ac.uk.
