‘Apprentices are earning over €50,000’: Why more school leavers are turning to trades

In the world of influencer carpentry, Eoin Reardon has five million followers across TikTok, YouTube and Instagram.

Carving out chairs, chopping boards, hurleys and a curragh, his catalogue of hobbyist woodwork has grown into a glorious, fruitful career. Yet, when Reardon finished his Leaving Cert, he had no idea that he’d end up working with his hands.

“I think I fell into a very common trap,” he says. “I ended up finishing secondary school without any major passions or interests. It was a case of okay; I’ve got so many points – how do I spend them? I think I had one point to spare to get into commerce. Both my parents were accountants so it kind of made sense in my mind that I would work in the same field as them.”

Reardon’s parents just wanted the best outcome for him, but they never considered that a trade might constitute that.

His secondary school was considered “a good feeder” for University College Cork. Not once were apprenticeships or trades discussed as a viable alternative option for students. He has no regrets about his path, but it has made him question the culture he experienced.

“Had I gone straight out of secondary school into a trade, I would have been much happier in my later teenage [years] and early twenties,” Reardon says.

“I was definitely very lost when I first went into college. We have a huge stigma, almost a snobbery in this country. ‘You have to go to college. If you’re off doing a trade or a PLC, you’re of a second-tier job.’ That has to change and I think it is starting to change.”

Working with builders’ merchant Chadwicks, Reardon is now promoting careers in trades for young adults. Recent research from the group found that 70 per cent of 16–24-year-olds in Ireland are keen to learn trade skills outside of their normal school day, while almost half say they have not had the opportunity to learn a trade in school.

“People are starting to see the blue-collar trades are as rewarding financially and more so physically,” Reardon says. “You’re active and moving around. You get to work with your hands instead of being sat in an office all day. They’re very attractive jobs as well as being absolutely necessary to curb this huge labour shortage we have trying to fight this housing crisis and so on.”

While Reardon drifted accidentally towards commerce, Wicklow native Petra O’Flaherty spent years trying to move into nursing and healthcare. She is currently in the seventh and final phase of an apprenticeship in a craft that runs in her blood – O’Flaherty is an eighth-generation stonemason.

“When I was in school, apprenticeships were still seen as what you did if you weren’t going to do well,” O’Flaherty says. “There was one fellah in my class who knew he wanted to be a mechanic. It was kind of frowned upon; nobody spoke about it. I thought it was really weird at the time, because I would have grown up around tradespeople.

“Now I look back and think, ‘God love him.’ Since I started my apprenticeship really, there has been a massive push on construction [trades] in particular.”

At the time of writing, O’Flaherty is competing in WorldSkills Ireland, an initiative designed to promote and develop apprenticeships, skills, and further and higher education training in Ireland. This is the third year that stonemasonry has been a part of WorldSkills, and she believes it is having a positive impact.

Since finishing secondary school, O’Flaherty has noticed the shifting culture around apprenticeships. Former teachers have tried to align themselves with her achievements in stonemasonry, despite never having promoted trades when she was their student. She says the apprenticeship is the best thing she has ever done in education.

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“I’m in phase seven which is actually the last phase,” O’Flaherty says. “But because I got through my college phases so fast, it’ll be next March before I can apply to be qualified. So, I’ve got a couple more months to go. Phase seven is your on-site phase … I’m either at home in the workshop or I’m on the job, God only knows where.

“I like that. I like the workshop work for the making side of it, but I also like the jobs, the hustle and bustle and being around the lads.”

Though her parents are from Ballyfermot in Dublin, O’Flaherty lives in the stonecutters’ village of Ballyknockan, Co Wicklow. The links between her craft and Irish history are endless. Like Reardon, she is working to engage younger people with trades.

“I’m part of a social media campaign at the moment run by the Department of Education,” she says. “It’s called Building Heroes and it’s to debunk myths and rumours about the construction industry, and to promote it. It’s bringing construction to platforms like TikTok and Instagram that younger people use, so that they’ll see what trades are like and get a sense for it.”

Mary-Liz Trant is executive director of the National Apprenticeship Office, a joint body established by the Higher Education Authority and Solas, the state agency responsible for further education training. With nearly 80 apprenticeship programmes now available in Ireland, Trant explains how the route has expanded.

“The traditional craft apprenticeships are a big part of the system, but we’ve over 50 other options,” she says. “Everything from recruitment practice to biopharma to international financial services to social work. That’s transforming the perceptions and the understanding of apprenticeship options. We have apprenticeships leading to degree-level and masters-level qualifications.”

No one is trying to discourage young people from going to university, but Ireland’s drive for higher education over the last few decades has left something of an imbalance. Efforts now revolve not around pushing people into FET but letting them know it’s an option. There is still work to do in that regard.

“We did a survey of apprentices late last year,” Trant says. “[Of] the respondents who came back – there were over 5,000 of them – less than 10 per cent said they had heard about apprenticeship opportunities from a teacher or a guidance counsellor.”

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Amid the housing and cost of living crises, apprenticeships are becoming more attractive. These courses allow you to earn while you learn; they tend to be more accessible on a local level and graduates earn good money early in their careers.

“We did a piece of work with the CSO,” Trant says. “We looked at employment outcomes including pay for apprentice graduates. It showed electrical apprentices who graduate, and also engineering, are earning over €50,000 [per year] on graduation. These are people who are generally in their early 20s.”

In comparison with the rest of the EU, Ireland has a very high number of higher education graduates. While the statistics are impressive, they lead to skill shortages in some areas. Dr Tom O’Connor, an economist, sociologist and former head of department at Munster Technological University, says Ireland has had to redress that.

O’Connor believes the rising take-up of apprenticeships is evidence of a changing culture. He expects 2025 figures for new registrations to pass 10,000.

“The number of apprenticeships per year in terms of registrations has gone up from around 2,500 in 2020, to 9,300 in 2024 and rising, because there are jobs at the end of them,” O’Connor says.

“On top of that, Solas have developed this model … What they’ve done now is develop apprenticeships based on industry needs. Industry groups have been coming to further education and higher education and saying what they want.”